Welcome to the State Bar’s 2025 Annual Report
The year 2025 brought both accomplishments and significant challenges for the State Bar.
In response to the widespread challenges applicants faced during the February 2025 California Bar Exam, the State Bar provided reimbursements, stipends, and fee waivers, and implemented scoring and non-scoring remedies in coordination with the Committee of Bar Examiners, the Board of Trustees, and the California Supreme Court. We also restructured the Office of Admissions, adding a Chief of Admissions position and separating exam development and exam administration functions. Also, within a short time frame, the Office of Admissions successfully delivered a smooth in-person July 2025 bar exam for 7,740 test takers.
Throughout 2025, the State Bar reinitiated discussions about the future of the bar exam to present a revised recommendation for the California Supreme Court’s consideration in time for its July 2026 decision. As part of that effort, we scheduled quarterly meetings with ABA-approved, California-accredited, and unaccredited law schools in California, each convening separately to focus on their most pressing issues. The work and effort around the future of the bar exam is ongoing, and we are committed to doing all we can to ensure its thoughtful consideration and success.
Public protection remains a core priority for the State Bar. The Office of Chief Trial Counsel pursued investigations, charges, and prosecutions involving attorneys who posed high risks of harm. The office addressed misconduct impacting voters, utility ratepayers, incarcerated individuals and criminal defendants, elderly trust beneficiaries, immigration clients, and tenants.
To strengthen attorneys’ client trust accounting practices, the Division of Regulation implemented voluntary Client Trust Account Protection Program (CTAPP) compliance reviews, which were a great success. As a result, the division launched mandatory CTAPP compliance reviews for 100 attorneys representing a cross-section of the attorney population.
Access to justice continues to be central to our mission, and in 2025, the Office of Access & Inclusion (OA&I) oversaw the Legal Services Trust Fund Commission’s distribution of $308 million in legal aid funding to 114 organizations. The State Bar further secured an additional $10 million in Equal Access Funds for vulnerable persons at risk of detention, deportation, eviction, wage theft, intimate partner violence, and other threats to their safety. While this is great news, OA&I’s 2025 impact brief underscores the consequences of declining federal support, and the office forecasts a $40 million decrease in Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts revenue in 2026.
As we reflect on the year, we remain committed to strengthening our legal system, supporting those seeking admission to the profession, protecting the public, enhancing regulation and discipline, and safeguarding access to justice statewide. These efforts continue to guide the State Bar’s work on behalf of the people of California.
