April 30, 2025 – The State Bar of California has filed a petition with the California Supreme Court seeking approval to adjust the scoring of the February 2025 bar exam in response to widespread technical issues reported during the test.
The Bar is requesting the Court to approve a lower raw passing score of 534, down from the standard score typically used, and to permit the use of predictive scoring models to address questions that some test-takers left unanswered. According to the Bar’s petition, this approach is intended to account for systemic disruptions and to ensure fairness for the more than 4,200 applicants who sat for the exam.
The scoring model, known as the Rasch model, allows for a probabilistic estimation of how a test-taker might have answered a question had the disruption not occurred. This methodology was applied to multiple-choice, essay, and performance sections of the exam.
In its filing, the Bar also acknowledged that artificial intelligence tools were used to assist in drafting a portion of the exam questions, including 11 scored items developed with the aid of ChatGPT. The Bar noted that while AI-assisted content development was utilized by a third-party contractor, this information was not clearly communicated to Bar leadership at the time.
The petition does not attribute individual fault for the technical challenges but indicates that both in-person and remote examinees experienced “unacceptable” exam-day issues, including freezes, access problems, and tool malfunctions. The Bar stated it has retained an independent investigator to review the exam’s administration.
Sauder Schelkopf filed a class action lawsuit in March 2025 on behalf of an individual who took the exam, naming Meazure Learning (formerly ProctorU Inc.) as a defendant. The complaint alleges difficulties during the remote administration of the exam but remains in its early stages.
The February 2025 exam was part of a pilot format developed after the California Supreme Court approved a transition away from the national Multistate Bar Exam in favor of a California-specific model intended to support both in-person and remote testing.
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Sauder Schelkopf has a nationally recognized litigation practice. The firm currently serves as court-appointed lead counsel in courts across the country. The attorneys at Sauder Schelkopf have recovered over $1 billion on behalf of their clients and class members. LawDragon has recognized our attorneys in its list of the “500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers” for 2022. Mr. Schelkopf was named to Pennsylvania’s Best Lawyers® 2022 for Class Actions/Mass Tort Litigation. The American Lawyer named Mr. Sauder to its 2021 Northeast Trailblazers. The honor recognizes 60 lawyers who are “truly agents of change.” It “recognizes professionals in the Northeast who have moved the needle in the legal industry.” The Legal Intelligencer named Mr. Sauder and Mr. Schelkopf in its 2020 Pennsylvania Trailblazers list recognizing 31 lawyers who “have taken extra measures to contribute to positive outcomes . . . and who are truly agents of change.” Our attorneys have also consistently been recognized by their peers being named to Pennsylvania SuperLawyer, a distinction held by the top 5% of attorneys in Pennsylvania.