{"id":126380,"date":"2025-07-11T15:02:51","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T23:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/07\/11\/hindsight-makes-it-easy-to-see-the-california-bar-made-too-many-changes-too-quickly\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T15:02:51","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T23:02:51","slug":"hindsight-makes-it-easy-to-see-the-california-bar-made-too-many-changes-too-quickly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/07\/11\/hindsight-makes-it-easy-to-see-the-california-bar-made-too-many-changes-too-quickly\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindsight Makes It Easy To See The California Bar Made Too Many Changes Too Quickly"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the worst things about how bad the February 2025 California Bar exam went was that nobody was even surprised about how bad it turned out. From the poor budgeting that birthed the rationale for this fiasco to the rushed timeline and AI questions being passed off as rigorous testing technology, the exam was a veritable comedy of errors. And when something this tragicomic happens, what is left but to learn from your mistakes? Former director of the state bar Leah Wilson shared her retrospective on the exam with Reuters<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The State Bar of California pursued too many changes at once, setting the stage for the problem-plagued February attorney licensing exam, the agency\u2019s former executive director said.<\/p>\n

Many of the February exam\u2019s problems stemmed from the decision to change both the content and delivery system of the bar exam simultaneously, Leah Wilson told Reuters on Wednesday in an interview two days after stepping down as the state bar\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While late is better than never, executives put in position to sift through who is and isn\u2019t minimally competent enough to be a lawyer really should be better at issue spotting. <\/p>\n

I will be the first to acknowledge hindsight is 20\/20 \u2014 I lived through the SWAG era of fashion. But I will also say that we are responsible for our own discernment. Did wearing checkered skinny jeans, a BAPE skully, and shutter shades seem like a good idea at the time? Maybe, but I had enough foresight to not base my entire business model on a spur of the moment assessment of what was in vogue! I also didn\u2019t have a business at the time to risk or enough money to be that swagged out, but that\u2019s neither here nor there.<\/p>\n

There was a bunch of critique toward the Cali Bar\u2019s decision to break from NCBE happening in real time. Yes, they could tell by the ledger that things were unsustainable as they were. And it isn\u2019t like their prior exam delivery system was without fault<\/a>. But there were other options at the time, like \u201clet[ting] a well-established business of bar exam experts write a test that could be used online, or limit the deal to Kaplan-provided locations, or create a slightly elongated timeline\u201d<\/a> just to get the ball rolling. But hubris wouldn\u2019t be hubris without eschewing safety measures. After one of the worst roll outs possible, California\u2019s Supreme Court ordered the Bar to use NCBE\u2019s test for the July bar<\/a>. And while this simplifies things for the July test-takers, it only kicks the can down the road for dealing with the Bar\u2019s budget burden. Hopefully the hindsight lesson of don\u2019t change everything at once will help them dig out of the hole. <\/p>\n

Too Many Changes At Once Led To California Bar Exam Mess, Ex-Director Says <\/a>[Reuters]<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: California Bar Risks Going Bankrupt Rather Than Change Its Exam<\/a><\/p>\n

California\u2019s Bar Exam Fiasco Enters Next Stage Of Stupid<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
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<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim,\u00a0is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at\u00a0cwilliams@abovethelaw.com<\/a> and by tweet at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Hindsight Makes It Easy To See The California Bar Made Too Many Changes Too Quickly<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

One of the worst things about how bad the February 2025 California Bar exam went was that nobody was even surprised about how bad it turned out. From the poor budgeting that birthed the rationale for this fiasco to the rushed timeline and AI questions being passed off as rigorous testing technology, the exam was a veritable comedy of errors. And when something this tragicomic happens, what is left but to learn from your mistakes? Former director of the state bar Leah Wilson shared her retrospective on the exam with Reuters<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The State Bar of California pursued too many changes at once, setting the stage for the problem-plagued February attorney licensing exam, the agency\u2019s former executive director said.<\/p>\n

Many of the February exam\u2019s problems stemmed from the decision to change both the content and delivery system of the bar exam simultaneously, Leah Wilson told Reuters on Wednesday in an interview two days after stepping down as the state bar\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While late is better than never, executives put in position to sift through who is and isn\u2019t minimally competent enough to be a lawyer really should be better at issue spotting. <\/p>\n

I will be the first to acknowledge hindsight is 20\/20 \u2014 I lived through the SWAG era of fashion. But I will also say that we are responsible for our own discernment. Did wearing checkered skinny jeans, a BAPE skully, and shutter shades seem like a good idea at the time? Maybe, but I had enough foresight to not base my entire business model on a spur of the moment assessment of what was in vogue! I also didn\u2019t have a business at the time to risk or enough money to be that swagged out, but that\u2019s neither here nor there.<\/p>\n

There was a bunch of critique toward the Cali Bar\u2019s decision to break from NCBE happening in real time. Yes, they could tell by the ledger that things were unsustainable as they were. And it isn\u2019t like their prior exam delivery system was without fault<\/a>. But there were other options at the time, like \u201clet[ting] a well-established business of bar exam experts write a test that could be used online, or limit the deal to Kaplan-provided locations, or create a slightly elongated timeline\u201d<\/a> just to get the ball rolling. But hubris wouldn\u2019t be hubris without eschewing safety measures. After one of the worst roll outs possible, California\u2019s Supreme Court ordered the Bar to use NCBE\u2019s test for the July bar<\/a>. And while this simplifies things for the July test-takers, it only kicks the can down the road for dealing with the Bar\u2019s budget burden. Hopefully the hindsight lesson of don\u2019t change everything at once will help them dig out of the hole. <\/p>\n

Too Many Changes At Once Led To California Bar Exam Mess, Ex-Director Says <\/a>[Reuters]<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: California Bar Risks Going Bankrupt Rather Than Change Its Exam<\/a><\/p>\n

California\u2019s Bar Exam Fiasco Enters Next Stage Of Stupid<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim,\u00a0is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a> and by tweet at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the worst things about how bad the February 2025 California Bar exam went was that nobody was even surprised about how bad it turned out. From the poor budgeting that birthed the rationale for this fiasco to the rushed timeline and AI questions being passed off as rigorous testing technology, the exam was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Chris-Williams-2025-aFZiQj.jpeg?fit=512%2C288&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}