The California State Bar has released results of the February 2020 California Bar Exam and announced that 1,128 people (26.8 percent of applicants) passed the General Bar Exam.
If those who passed satisfy all other requirements for admission, they will be eligible to be licensed by the State Bar to practice law in California, the Bar said.
The mean scaled Multi-state Bar Examination score on the February 2020 bar exam in California was 1357, down from 1370 last year. The national mean score was 1326, down from the previous year’s mean of 1328 and an all-time low.
According to Donna Hershkowitz, Interim Executive Director of the State Bar, the Bar is submitting a work plan “addressing how we intend to administer the next exam in September. For the long term, the State Bar has recently completed several studies that we hope will contribute meaningfully to informed discussion around a future direction for the California bar exam.”
The State Bar’s Board of Trustees will reportedly review the agency’s most recent bar exam studies and consider recommendations for next steps on the future of the exam at its scheduled May 14 meeting.
February 2020 General Bar Exam Preliminary Statistics
- Completed the exam: 4,205 applicants
- First-time applicants: 1,192 (28.3 percent of total)
- Pass rate for first-time applicants: 38.0 percent overall
- Repeat applicants: 3,013 (71.6 percent of total)
- Pass rate for repeat applicants: 22.0 percent overall
To read the entire press release, go to http://www.calbar.ca.gov/About-Us/News/News-Releases/state-bar-of-california-releases-results-of-february-2020-bar-exam