‘Utterly Botched’: Glitchy rollout of new California bar exam prompts lawsuit and calls for official review

Los Angeles Times ^ | Feb. 28, 2025 Updated 8:48 AM PT | Jenny Jarvie

[E. Pluribus Unum]

• The State Bar of California sought to save money with a new bar exam that offered the choice of remote test taking.

• Test takers complained of glitches and chaos when taking the test.

Test takers seeking to practice law in California experienced chaos this week as the State Bar of California fumbled the rollout of its new attorney licensing test, leaving many unable to complete their bar exams and some filing a proposed federal class action lawsuit.

The online testing platforms repeatedly crashed before some applicants even started. Others struggled to finish and save essays, experienced screen lags anderror messages and could not copy and paste text from test questions into the exam’s response field — a function officials had stated would be possible.

“It was quite a debacle,” David Drelinger, a 2023 graduate of Lincoln Law School in Sacramento, told The Times.

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After logging on remotely at around 9:45 a.m. Tuesday — 15 minutes ahead of his 10 a.m. remote exam — Drelinger said the testing platform crashed when a proctor logged on. He rebooted multiple times, eventually trying three laptops and knocking on neighbors’ doors to access passwords to different internet connections.

After 35 attempts at logging on, he gave up.

“Today was one of the worst days of my life,” Drelinger wrote in an email to the State Bar. “There were a few points that I thought I was having a panic attack and almost had to call an ambulance because I didn’t want to die alone today at my computer.”

The new exam was promoted by the State Bar of California as a cost-cutting measure that would offer test takers the choice of remote testing. But the deans of many of California’s top law schools had raised concerns to the State Bar and California Supreme Court in the run up...

[BenLurkin]

It wouldn’t hurt California to goa year or two without licensing any new lawyers.

[chuckb87]

Remote testing huh? California loves putting things in place that allow cheating.

[catnipman]

“‘Utterly Botched’: Glitchy rollout of new California bar exam prompts lawsuit and calls for official review”

It’s California, Jake ...

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“There were a few points that I thought I was having a panic attack and almost had to call an ambulance because I didn’t want to die alone today at my computer.”

Do we REALLY want a Drama Queen lawyer in California?

[DAC21]

"Test takers seeking to practice law in California experienced chaos this week as the State Bar of California fumbled the rollout of its new attorney licensing test, leaving many unable to complete their bar exams and some filing a proposed federal class action lawsuit"

Hahaha! These he / she / it's are chomping at the bit, they aren't even officially Ambulance chasers yet, but they be chasing.

[dagunk]

1. Get your money back from whoever wrote this abortion and whoever else took their money - Service was not delivered as promised or on time.

2. Wonder if they were using mswindows for the servers. Very stupid decision if they were. A unix-based system is much more capable and reliable - Linux, one of the BSDs, QNX, AIX, etc.

[hinckley buzzard]

Like they don’t have enough already.

[TalBlack]

They’ve been giving Bar exams since time immemorial it now … no. Figures.

[ken in texas]

- Remote testing huh? California loves putting things in place that allow cheating. -

Oh, I'm sure they told all the test takers that cheating was not allowed. 🙉 🙈 🙊

[RetiredTexasVet]

Follow the money. Find out whose relative or butt buddy got the contract to do the online project and you’ll understand.