Admissions
What We Do
Working as an administrative arm of the California Supreme Court, the State Bar oversees all activities required for admitting attorneys to the practice of law in the nation’s most populous state. The State Bar develops, administers, and grades the California Bar Examination and conducts moral character investigations required for admission. The agency administers programs for several admissions pathways beyond graduation from a traditional, nationally accredited law school. Designed to broaden access to the legal profession, these multiple pathways also create unique challenges for the State Bar’s admissions system.
California is unique in offering its own accreditation for law schools, an effort overseen by the Committee of Bar Examiners. The State Bar regulates two types of law schools: California-accredited law schools and registered (unaccredited) law schools.
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Bar exam applicants tested
Applicants granted testing accommodations
Moral character applications reviewed
New attorneys admitted
Provisionally licensed lawyers as of the end of 2025
February 2025 California Bar Exam
In response to the significant challenges in both the lead up to and the administration of the February 2025 California Bar Exam, the State Bar took unprecedented steps to address financial burdens and ensure bar exam outcomes were not impacted by the technological issues applicants faced. To reduce the financial burden on February applicants, the State Bar reimbursed application fees for late withdrawals and reimbursed or provided stipends for nonrefundable or unanticipated travel costs that met specific criteria. In addition, for those who withdrew from the exam or were unsuccessful, the State Bar issued exam application fee waivers redeemable up through the July 2026 bar exam. To address the impact of the technological issues on scores, the State Bar, following direction from the Committee of Bar Examiners and the Board of Trustees, with approval of the California Supreme Court, where appropriate, implemented scoring and non-scoring remedies for impacted applicants. To address some of the organizational issues that contributed to the challenges with the exam, a new organizational structure for the Office of Admissions was created. The structure now includes a new Chief of Admissions position to ensure appropriate oversight at the highest levels of the State Bar. The new structure also separates the examination development and the examination administration functions to ensure sufficient, focused attention is given to both of these critical areas.
Resetting the discussion for the future California Bar Exam
In the aftermath of the February 2025 bar exam, the State Bar reinitiated discussions about the future of the bar exam, exploring whether to provide a recommendation to the California Supreme Court for a different path for the California bar exam to administer in the future. These discussions were accompanied by renewed efforts to engage more regularly and thoughtfully with law school stakeholders. In September 2025, the State Bar launched quarterly engagement meetings with ABA-approved law schools, California-accredited law schools, and unaccredited law schools in California. Each group meets separately with the State Bar to ensure focused attention on the issues most important to them.
Effective delivery of July 2025 California Bar Exam
Following the challenging February 2025 bar exam, Admissions was able to pivot in a shortened time frame to smoothly deliver the in-person July 2025 bar exam for 7,740 test takers. The State Bar contracted with ExamSoft for the software platform, contracted with test sites for standard test takers and those with accommodations, and secured sufficient numbers of proctors to ensure exam security and integrity. Overall, 11,971 test takers sat for a bar exam in 2025.
Provisional Licensure Programs created, extended, and sunsetted
A new provisional licensure program was created for first-time applicants who failed or withdrew from the February 2025 exam. The program mirrored the original 2020 Provisional Licensure Program, which did not create a pathway to admission but allowed 2020 law school graduates, as defined, to practice law under the supervision of a lawyer. The new 2025 program sunsets December 1, 2027; the sunset for the original program was extended to that same date, giving the remaining 60 active participants additional opportunities to gain full licensure before the program ends. The Pathway Provisional Licensure Program, which commenced in February 2021, sunsetted on December 31, 2025; it differed from the original and the 2025 programs in that it allowed people who scored between 1390 and 1439 on a bar exam administered between July 2015 and February 2020 to be admitted to the practice of law after successfully completing 300 hours of supervised practice and receiving a positive evaluation. Nearly 85 percent of the 1,021 participants were admitted to the bar.
Board approves fee increases for Admissions Fund
To prevent insolvency of the Admissions Fund, the Board of Trustees approved fee increases for 11 key programs. However, fees for nonattorney California Bar Exam applicants were increased only by the consumer price index (CPI) in an effort to keep the bar exam affordable for nonattorney applicants. The impact of the decision not to raise fees higher than the CPI means that anticipated costs for the 2026 bar exams exceed projected revenues by approximately $2.8 million. The Admissions Fund has also been strained by unanticipated costs resulting from the February 2025 exam, including several million dollars in fee waivers issued as part of remedial measures and the return to in-person administration. As a result, the fund’s reserve is projected to total $1.7 million at the end of 2026, or 5.1 percent, which is well below the Board’s 17 percent minimum reserve policy. Given the uncertainty surrounding future bar exam development costs, the fund’s financial position remains precarious.