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The State Bar of California has acknowledged that 23 questions on the February 2025 bar exam were generated using artificial intelligence, rather than being crafted by licensed attorneys.

In light of this revelation, the bar is planning to request the California Supreme Court to make adjustments to students’ scores after the exam, which also faced significant technical issues.

As an essential licensing examination for aspiring lawyers, the test became a source of controversy due to AI-generated questions, system failures, and ensuing lawsuits from examinees.

• 171 total scored multiple-choice questions
• 100 questions sourced from Kaplan
• 48 questions were taken from an older first-year exam
• 23 questions were developed with assistance from AI by ACS Ventures
• $8.25 million: Contract amount with Kaplan
• $22 million: Budget deficit faced by the State Bar

The Backlash

The legal education community is expressing outrage.

“The fact that the questions were generated by non-lawyers using AI is simply unbelievable,” stated Mary Basick, assistant dean at UC Irvine Law.

“This is a shocking admission,” added Katie Moran, a law professor at USF. “The same company that utilized AI also approved its own questions.”

Test-takers in February reported:

• Frequent platform crashes
• Inability to save essay responses
• Errors from copy-pasting
• Questions filled with nonsensical statements or typos

Meazure Learning, the provider of the testing platform, is now facing lawsuits from affected students.

The Broader Implications

The legal landscape is already experiencing the influence of AI. However, the lack of proper oversight and attempts to cut costs transformed this initiative into a debacle. Dean Andrew Perlman of Suffolk Law suggests that while AI can assist in test creation, its outputs must be thoroughly vetted by legal experts.

“In the future, we may find ourselves concerned about the competency of lawyers who don’t incorporate