April 23, 2025 – Berwyn, PA — The State Bar of California has acknowledged for the first time that artificial intelligence was used to develop multiple-choice questions for the February 2025 bar exam, a revelation that has sparked backlash across the legal community and prompted calls for increased transparency and accountability.
According to a news release issued by the State Bar on Monday, 23 scored questions were created with the assistance of AI by ACS Ventures, a private psychometric firm hired to assess the validity and reliability of exam content. The State Bar also confirmed that an additional 48 questions were recycled from a first-year law student exam — a standard considered far below the threshold for evaluating minimum competence to practice law.
Legal educators and bar preparation experts have expressed alarm over what they describe as a “staggering admission.” Critics argue that the use of non-lawyers and AI to draft licensure exam content constitutes a fundamental breach of trust and potentially compromises the exam’s fairness.
The fallout from the February exam has been swift. Reports surfaced soon after the test of widespread technical issues — including screen freezes, missing question facts, and nonsensical content — prompting scrutiny from the California Supreme Court and a legislative inquiry by the state Senate Judiciary Committee. The State Bar has since announced it will ask the court to adjust test scores, but has resisted broader calls to release all 200 questions or revert to the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ established testing model.
On March 3, 2025, national plaintiffs’ firm Sauder Schelkopf filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of February 2025 bar examinees, alleging systemic failures after widespread technical issues, software crashes, and administration errors severely disrupted test-takers’ ability to complete the exam.
The Committee of Bar Examiners is scheduled to meet on May 5 to consider possible remedies, but early statements suggest a return to traditional testing methods is unlikely.
As the story continues to unfold, examinees, law schools, and legal organizations are calling for an independent audit of the February exam and greater safeguards to prevent AI from undermining the human standards of the legal profession.
About Sauder Schelkopf
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.