- The pass rate on California’s October 2020 general bar exam—the first ever administered online—climbed to 60.7%, reflecting the state’s new lower passing, or cut, score of 1390. The success rate is the highest since July 2008, when applicants still needed a score of 1440 to pass.
- The results, released by the state bar on Friday night, show that 84% of first-time test-takers from American Bar Association-approved law schools in California, the cohort that typically performs the best, passed. Half of repeat test-takers from that group posted passing scores.
- Just over 9,300 applicants completed the exam, the largest number since 2013.
- “We heartily congratulate the 5,292 applicants who passed the general bar exam and the 323 candidates who passed the Attorneys’ Exam in this tremendously challenging year,” the bar’s interim executive director, Donna Hershkowitz, said in a prepared message. “We are pleased that the first-ever remote bar exam will result in such a large influx of new attorneys at a time when more people than ever need legal help.”
1/11/21 update: See Who Passed California's October 2020 Bar Exam:
- Nearly 300 people who passed the bar identified San Francisco as their residence, the records show. And Los Angeles was identified as the residence for more than 500 people who passed the exam. On the international front, two people identified Israel as their residence, and 29 said they lived in China. Six people who reside in Canada passed the exam.
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