Reports

The State Bar of California issued the following statement in response to the California State Auditor’s report today:

“Since the February 2025 bar exam, the State Bar has undertaken significant work to strengthen the administration of the California bar examination and improve our practices and processes including contracting, exam development and validation, and internal and external communication,” said José Cisneros, State Bar Board Chair. “We fully acknowledge the unacceptable experiences exam takers faced leading up to and during that exam. We agree with all of the audit’s recommendations, which are consistent with the changes we have already implemented or are in the process of implementing, and the direction we have set for exam development and contracting. These efforts build on our recent administration of two successful in person bar exams and the Board’s ongoing work with the Committee of Bar Examiners (CBE), the California Supreme Court, the California Legislature, and other key stakeholders, to improve any potential future exam development, processes, and oversight.”

“The audit arrives at a pivotal time in the future of California’s bar exam,” Cisneros said. “As reflected in our response, the Board of Trustees and the CBE have recommended that the California Supreme Court adopt the NextGen UBE beginning in July 2028, with a potential California component after that. Since the structure of any future bar exam will ultimately depend on the Court’s directives, we have noted in our response where certain recommendations may shift under different exam possibilities. Nonetheless, the audit’s thoughtful recommendations provide important guidance as the State Bar remains resolute in ensuring that future bar exams are reliable, equitable, secure, and fairly assess minimum competence.”

While the State Bar agrees with the audit’s recommendations, in its response to the auditor on June 18, 2026, the State Bar noted that it had disagreements with certain findings of the report. The State Bar did not address those concerns in light of ongoing litigation with Proctor U, Inc., dba Meazure Learning, its contracted vendor for the administration of the in-person and remote February 2025 bar exam.

The auditor’s six recommendations align with and validate the direction the State Bar has already embarked on. A sampling of some of the extensive actions the State Bar has already taken, include the following:

  • The State Bar is developing a comprehensive exam administration and development framework that will establish clear processes for many exam development and administration protocols, including ensuring robust and consistent content validation and subject matter expert review of new exam content, and requiring content needs and proportions to be finalized before question development begins.
  • To ensure proper oversight of vendor services, the State Bar has already begun revising its General Procurement Manual to require managerial approval for requests that fall outside the scope of a vendor’s contracted responsibilities. Final updates are expected in the coming months. In addition, the Office of Admissions instituted more vigorous vendor management processes to ensure that leadership is informed about and involved in key decision making.
  • The State Bar developed business requirements for administration of the bar exam, approved by the Committee of Bar Examiners and the Board of Trustees, which were used to determine the vendor in the best position to administer the bar exam. These business requirements will be updated as needed in the future and continue to be used as the basis for determining appropriate vendors.
  • The State Bar competitively bid exam administration contracts for the First-Year Law Students’ Exam, the California Bar Exam, and the Legal Specialists Exam, in addition to the contract for psychometric support services for those three exams.
  • The State Bar restructured the Office of Admissions, creating a Chief of Admissions and a Director of Exam Development and separating exam development functions from exam administration functions. These improvements are designed to ensure appropriate leadership level focus on critical decision making.
  • The Committee of Bar Examiners established a subcommittee on exam administration and a subcommittee on exam development to ensure proper oversight of key decisions.

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The State Bar of California’s mission is to protect the public and includes the primary functions of licensing, regulation and discipline of attorneys; the advancement of the ethical and competent practice of law; and support of efforts for greater access to, and inclusion in, the legal system.