California Supreme Court Approves Incentives to Test Drive New Bar Exam Questions

The California Supreme Court on Tuesday approved a State Bar of California proposal to provide bar applicants an incentive for a study being held on Nov. 8 and Nov. 9 that will pretest experimental multiple-choice exam questions developed by Kaplan, Inc. Participants in those studies may increase their chances of passing a future bar exam under certain conditions.

The scoring adjustment will only be available to participants who meet a threshold of performance on the exam, to be determined by the Committee of Bar Examiners. “No participant shall receive a scoring adjustment simply for participating in the proposed study,” the court’s order read. The court also stated that any scoring adjustment “does not alter the maximum available points for the General Bar Examination or its passing score,” but, instead, “the proposed study potentially provides participants with additional questions through which they may demonstrate competency.”

The court denied a related scoring adjustment proposal for participation in special sessions scheduled in conjunction with the July 2025 California Bar exam. The court denied this part of the State Bar’s request without prejudice to its resubmission pending results of the November study and the submission of additional details concerning the State Bar’s plans for the July sessions.

The court also granted a petition to make the bar exam be mostly remote administered, beginning in February 2025.

On Oct. 10, the court issued an order approving a slate of modifications based on the report and recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on the Future of the Bar Exam. As part of that order, the State Bar was directed to develop a California-specific bar exam. That order also rejected a separate proposal for a licensing alternative, the portfolio bar exam. That proposal would have allowed certain law school graduates to demonstrate their professional competence through a program of supervised legal practice in which work product created for clients would later be graded by an admissions committee.