California Considers Lowering Passing Score On July Bar Exam

Paul Carron:

Today the State Bar of California released a standard setting study of the pass line for the California Bar Exam. The study, along with options presented by staff, will be discussed at a joint meeting of the Committee of Bar Examiners and Board of Trustees’ Admissions and Education Committee on Monday, July 31, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The public meeting will be held at the State Bar’s Los Angeles office, and will be webcast.

A memo from staff to the Committee of Bar Examiners presents two potential options, based on an analysis of a Standard Setting Study conducted by Chad Buckendahl, Ph.D. One option, drawing from findings in the study which validate the current pass line of 1440, is to make no change to the bar exam passing score at this time. A second option is to consider an interim passing score of 1414 (or 141.4 on the commonly-used 200-point scale) to be applied to grading the July 2017 bar exam.