California Supreme Court orders state bar to revert to national exams after testing debacle
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The California Supreme Court on Friday lowered the passing score on the State Bar of California’s botched February exam and ordered the agency to ditch its new multiple-choice questions in July and revert to the traditional test format.
“The Court remains concerned over the processes used to draft those questions, including the previously undisclosed use of artificial intelligence,” the state’s highest court said in a Friday order.
“In light of the particular issues encountered February,” the court lowered the total raw passing score for general bar exam takers to 534 points or higher on the essay, performance test and multiple-choice questions.
The order came just hours after the State Bar of California announced that its embattled leader, who has faced growing pressure to resign after the exam debacle, will step down in July.
Leah T. Wilson, the agency’s executive director, informed the Board of Trustees she will not seek another term in the position she has held on and off since 2017. She also apologized for her role in the February bar exam chaos.
“Accountability is a bedrock principle for any leader,” Wilson said in a statement.
“At the end of the day, I am responsible for everything that occurs within the organization. Despite our best intentions, the experiences of applicants for the February Bar Exam simply were unacceptable, and I fully recognize the frustration and stress this experience caused. While there are no words to assuage those emotions, I do sincerely apologize.”
Wilson’s last day will be July 7.
Many February test takers urged Wilson to resign after the exam, which critics say was rolled out hastily in a bid to save money and ultimately plagued by technical glitches and irregularities. Last week, further controversy erupted when it became clear that the state bar had not been transparent about the use of artificial intelligence to develop multiple-choice questions.
Using AI-developed questions written by non-legally-trained psychometricians represents ‘an obvious conflict of interest,’ critics say.
The news of Wilson‘s departure came on the day that thousands of February test takers were scheduled to get their exam results.
But the results appear to have been delayed after the state bar was late filing a petition with the California Supreme Court on scoring adjustments for the exam that also responded to the court’s questions about how and why it used AI to develop multiple-choice questions.
The state bar filed a petition to the Supreme Court on Tuesday — and test takers remain in limbo, unsure when they will learn if they passed or failed.
Since the debacle, Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), chair of the state Senate Judiciary Committee, and many legal experts have called on the state bar to ditch the new questions and revert to the traditional test format in July — at least until new questions and methods are adequately tested.
After the botched roll out of the new exam in February, the state’s highest court directed the agency to plan on administering the July exam in the traditional in-person format.
On April 25, deans at more than a dozen California’s American Bar Assn.-accredited law schools wrote to Patricia Guerrero, chief justice of the California Supreme Court, expressing “serious concerns about the exam’s fairness and validity.” The deans urged the court to release all 200 multiple-choice questions that were on the February exam and return to using the NCBE’s Multistate Bar Examination for the multiple-choice portion of the next exam.
Wilson, however, signaled Friday that California should push ahead with its own bar exam.
“As the fourth largest economy in the world, it is only right that California develops its own bar exam, and that ultimately that exam reflect the innovation, excellence, equity, and accessibility principles that are central to who we are as Californians,” she said in a statement. “We will not get there by turning backward.”
Wilson first took on the role of executive director in 2017, but exited briefly to work for a consulting firm before returning in 2021. She faced additional scrutiny for her income — she earned an annual 2023 salary of $362,067, plus $59,968 in bonuses — at a time when the state bar is struggling financially.
“Stagnating revenue and increasing personnel costs,” California’s state auditor said in a recent report, “have led its general fund to a deficit in four of the last five years.”
Still, Wilson said she was proud of her time at the helm of the state bar, citing her efforts to make the organization an “exceptional workplace” that resulted in “strong staff engagement, positive union relationships and historically low turnover.”
“Over the course of nearly 10 years, I have had the privilege of leading the State Bar through a period of transformative change,” Wilson said in a statement.
“I am particularly proud of our efforts to elevate and offer real solutions to the access-to-justice crisis in our state, make real our commitments to increasing equity and inclusion in the profession, and stabilizing the State Bar financially,” Wilson added.
Brandon Stallings, chair of the state bar’s Board of Trustees, praised Wilson’s leadership, noting she had played a key role in advancing many of the organization’s critical initiatives.
“The Board recognizes the significant contributions that Leah Wilson made during her tenure, particularly in the concerted effort to recognize and address racial disparities in the discipline system,” Stallings said. “We understand and respect her decision, and we are grateful for her service.”
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