By Karen Sloan

July 16 (Reuters) - California will begin using the new national bar exam in July 2028 in the latest fallout from the state's failed experiment with designing and administering its own in-person and remote licensing test for would-be lawyers in February 2025.

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday approved moving to the NextGen Uniform Bar Exam, which is the updated exam from the National Conference of Bar Examiners that is set to debut later this month. It also ordered the State Bar of California to develop a California law-specific section to supplement the NextGen exam.

California joins 46 other states that have adopted the NextGen exam, the first major update of the national bar exam in 25 years. California is the nation’s second-largest bar exam jurisdiction behind only New York, which is also moving to the NextGen exam in 2028. Arkansas, Louisiana and Nevada are the only states to not yet adopt the NextGen exam.

The NextGen test, which is only administered in person, differs from the bar exam California currently uses by emphasizing practical legal skills over memorization of laws. At nine hours, it is shorter than the current 12-hour exam. It will also be the first national bar exam to forgo paper test booklets, aside from during the pandemic.

The State Bar of California's Board of Trustees in May recommended switching to the NextGen exam after months of deliberation over whether it should continue to develop its own test in a bid to save money.

Cutting costs was the driving force behind the 2024 decision for California to stop using the Multistate Bar Exam — the 200-question, multiple-choice section of the national bar exam designed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners — and develop its own multiple-choice questions written by Kaplan Exam Services.

That move was expected to save the state bar as much as $3.8 million annually by delivering the test to most takers online and eliminating the need to rent out large event spaces. Those projected savings were intended to help the state bar’s attorney admissions arm stay solvent amid a budget crunch.

However, February 2025 test-takers encountered widespread technical and logistical problems. Some examinees were unable to log into the bar exam at all, while many experienced delays, lax exam security, distracting proctors and a faulty copy-and-paste function. The California Supreme Court subsequently ordered the state to return to the Multistate Bar Exam and in-person testing.

A July 9 report from the California State Auditor found that the February 2025 bar exam cost the state ⁠bar at least $5.1 million, with an additional $4 million in lost revenue from fee waivers and exam refunds for test takers. The state bar rushed the development of the exam and did not fully vet its vendors, contributing to the problems, it concluded.

The state bar on Monday said it had settled a lawsuit it brought against testing platform Meazure Learning alleging the company failed to live up to its promises that its systems could handle thousands of bar examinees. Meazure, which denied any wrongdoing, agreed to pay the state bar $5.25 million and forgo an outstanding $1.36 million payment.

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