At its July 18 meeting, the State Bar of California’s Board of Trustees voted to authorize the Board Chair and Executive Director to negotiate terms of and, if appropriate, execute a five-year bar exam agreement not to exceed $8.25 million with Kaplan North America, LLC. If an agreement is reached, Kaplan would create California-specific multiple-choice, essays, and performance test questions for the California Bar Exam. The multiple-choice questions would replace the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) in time for the February 2025 exam. The agreement will help the State Bar transition to remote and test center-based exam administration, both of which test takers prefer. These test administration changes will also help the State Bar close a significant gap in the Admissions Fund, which is projected to reach insolvency in 2026, absent further efforts to reduce costs.
For years, the State Bar has utilized the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ (NCBE) multiple-choice question set, the MBE. The NCBE does not allow remote or test center-based exam administration. “The State Bar Admissions Fund must be self-sustaining, and the Board has been working to close a significant deficit by raising fees and cutting costs,” said Board Chair Brandon Stallings. “It is essential that the Board make financially prudent decisions while offering California bar exam takers options that meet their needs and help them save money. An agreement with Kaplan would preclude the need to balance the budget through further increases in applicant fees, and we look forward to working with Kaplan on this new endeavor. We also want to thank the NCBE for their partnership over the last four decades that the State Bar has utilized the MBE.”
Among other items, the Board took action on three recommendations that arose from the State Bar’s Ad Hoc Commission on the Discipline System, which identified needed fairness and effectiveness reforms to address historic racial disparities in the attorney discipline system in a number of areas:
- Approved to circulate for public comment a new rule that would implement a plan to automatically expunge nondisbarment attorney discipline records after eight years, assuming no further discipline. If the rule is adopted by the Board of Trustees and approved by the Supreme Court, nearly 2,000 active attorneys will benefit.
- Approved changes to the State Bar’s standards for attorney discipline to give State Bar Court judges greater discretion in determining sanctions for attorneys who engage in repeated misconduct.
- Adopted a new Discipline Cost Model that will significantly reduce the maximum costs that can be assessed to attorneys subject to discipline from $26,722 to $13,307. In addition, approved to circulate for public comment a rule revision that would reduce the maximum amount of the sanctions that can be assessed to attorneys subject to discipline from $5,000 to $1,000.
The Board heard a positive update on the fee bill, AB 3279, the current version of which would increase fees for active licensees by $88. The Board voted to authorize staff to continue to negotiate for the higher amount sought of the fee increase with the Legislature, and to advocate for statutory language authorizing the State Bar to access a portion of the Client Security Fund (CSF) reserves and future CSF collection revenue for State Bar IT investments. The Board adopted a proposal to amend the statute that earmarks licensing fees to support law student fellowships, increasing the earmark from $5 to $10. The Board also voted to support Senator Tom Umberg’s SB 940, which tasks the State Bar in creating, for the first time, a program to certify alternative dispute resolution firms, providers, and practitioners. The bill envisions a tiered certification program akin to the State Bar’s DEI Leadership Seal program, where eligible firms and providers would qualify for different levels of certification based on a range of public protection service.
Record IOLTA allocation to support legal aid
The Board approved the Legal Services Trust Fund Commission’s recommendation of a 2025 legal aid grant distribution of a record $252 million, a 164 percent increase over the 2024 grant distribution of $95.3 million. The increase is largely the result of increased interest rates paid on Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) accounts.
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