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State Bar of California Releases Results of July 2021 Bar Exam

Today the State Bar released results of the July 2021 California Bar Exam and announced that 3,995 people (53.0 percent of applicants) passed the General Bar Exam. If those who passed satisfy all other requirements for admission, they will be eligible to be licensed by the State Bar to practice law in California.

“We heartily congratulate the 3,995 applicants who passed the General Bar Exam and the 180 candidates who passed the Attorneys’ Exam, particularly after facing and overcoming the challenges of preparing for and taking the exam amid the extraordinary impacts of the pandemic,” said Leah Wilson, State Bar Executive Director. “We look forward to welcoming them to California’s legal profession very soon."

In keeping with national trends, the pass rate was down in California, by 7.8 percentage points. Numerous states, including New York and Texas, posted declines from the previous year; the decline in many states was in the double digits. Nationwide, the mean scaled score on the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) fell to 140.4, a decrease of 0.7 percentage points from July 2019, the last comparable MBE for a July exam.

Of the 7,930 applicants who took the exam in California, 7,742 took it remotely. The July exam was the third administered predominantly remotely.

This exam was affected nationwide by technological issues reported by vendor ExamSoft, in which some applicants encountered a “black screen” or “blue screen,” requiring them to restart their laptop to continue. ExamSoft reported afterward that these issues resulted from high-memory utilization between ExamMonitor (the video proctoring arm of its software) and the main software that generates digital images.

The State Bar of California investigated these issues among its examinees and determined that while 158 applicants—or 2 percent—appeared to have lost time or content, a total of 2,429 California test takers—31 percent—reported experiencing one or more related technical issues.

In its commitment to treat this group of examinees fairly, the State Bar took unprecedented measures. Staff worked with the State Bar’s psychometrician to develop a scoring adjustment for all those who encountered these technological issues.

In addition, the 1,298 applicants who were affected by those issues and who did not pass the exam will be able to request that their July 2021 exam fees be applied to the February 2022 or July 2022 exam, or fully refunded.

“The Board felt strongly that we needed to do everything possible to ensure fairness for this group of examinees,” said Ruben Duran, Chair of the Board of Trustees. “While a psychometrically sound scoring adjustment was made, it was clear that there’s no way to fully quantify what impacts these issues had on examinees. We decided that offering a credit or refund to those who were affected and were unsuccessful on this exam was the right thing to do.”

Applicants will receive instructions with their results letter on how to take advantage of these options.

A pass list from the exam will be published on the State Bar website on November 14, 2021, at 6:00 a.m. More detailed statistics about exam results will be available in four to six weeks on the State Bar website.

Successful applicants who satisfy all requirements for admission may take the Attorney’s Oath individually or participate in admissions ceremonies held by their law school or others. Due to the current COVID-19 restrictions, the State Bar’s Office of Admissions has posted instructions for individuals to be sworn in remotely.

If they have satisfied all other requirements, applicants are eligible to practice law in California after taking the Attorney’s Oath and submitting their oath card to the State Bar. For the first time, the State Bar is enabling digital signing and electronic processing of oath cards, designed to increase the security and accuracy of the oath cards and speed the registration and licensing process.   

Approximately two weeks after forwarding the signed oath card to the State Bar, new licensees’ names will appear on the agency’s roll of licensed attorneys, accessible on the State Bar website.

July 2021 General Bar Exam preliminary statistics

• Completed the General Bar Exam: 7,536 applicants
• First-time applicants: 4,983 (66.1 percent of total)
• Pass rate for first-time applicants: 71.0 percent overall
• Repeat applicants: 2,553 (33.9 percent of total)
• Pass rate for repeat applicants: 19.0 percent overall

Pass rate for the General Bar Exam (rounded to whole numbers) by law school type:

School Type	First-Timers	Repeaters
California ABA	81%	28%
Out-of-State ABA	76%	23%
California Accredited (not ABA)	43%	15%
Unaccredited: Fixed-Facility	29%	10%
Unaccredited: Correspondence	50%	0%
Unaccredited Distance-Learning	73%	10%
All Others	0%	0%
All Applicants	71%	19%

General information about the structure and content of the General Bar Exam.

The Attorneys’ Examination is open to those who have been admitted to the active practice of law and are in good standing for at least four years in another U.S. jurisdiction. Of the 394 attorneys who completed the Attorneys’ Examination, 180 (45.7 percent) passed.