Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Page 1
Suit Over State Bar Exam Foul-Up Settled for $5.25 Million
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
The State Bar of California has settled its Los Angeles Superior Court case against the company it blames for the February 2025 bar exam debacle, agreeing to accept a $5.25 million payment and a waiver of the $1.36 million the defendant claimed is owing to it for its services.
It will dismiss the lawsuit within two business days of receiving the money, which is to occur within 45 days from last Monday.
ProctorU, Inc., which does business as Meazure Learning, was sued on May 5, 2025, with a partially redacted amended complaint filed on March 11, 2026. The causes of action are for fraudulent inducement/concealment, false promise, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and declaratory relief.
The State Bar alleged that Meazure lied about its abilities and made false promises in connection with the computer-based exam, conducted remotely and in person at testing centers, resulting in some bar-admission hopefuls being unable to log on and frustration for many who did get into the system, owing to technical failures, including screens freezing and crashes. The amended pleading—signed, as the first one was, by Moez M. Kaba of the downtown Los Angeles firm of Hueston Hennigan LLP, says:
“Contemporaneous, internal communications among Meazure employees (which were not disclosed to the State Bar until discovery in this case) confirmed what was obvious: Meazure had been misrepresenting its capabilities for months, and its platform had predictably failed in catastrophic fashion.”
Agreement Signed
The accord was announced late Monday. The agreement was signed on that day by State Bar Executive Director Laura Enderton-Speed and by Measure’s executive director, Timothy McClinton.
Under the terms of the agreement, “Meazure shall cause a payment to be made to the State Bar, pursuant to the Payment Instructions, of five million two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($5,250,000.00)” and waives “any and all claims relating to invoices that Meazure issued to the State Bar or sums Meazure claims it is owed by the State Bar that have not been paid.”
It is set forth that “[i]n the event of a dispute arising out of the effect or enforcement of this Agreement, the prevailing party will be entitled to recover reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs actually incurred in relation to resolving the dispute.”
Meazure entered into the settlement “without any admission of liability or wrongdoing.”
State Bar General Counsel Ellin Davtyan commented that the “settlement is a reasonable, appropriate, and acceptable resolution for the State Bar that helps offset the costs the State Bar expended in response to the aftermath of the February 2025 bar exam, including refunds, waivers, and stipends provided to impacted applicants.”
A state auditor report released July 7 says the fiasco cost the State Bar at least $5.1 million.
Allegations of Pleading
The operative pleading alleges:
“…Meazure…held itself out as an honest and capable, and indeed superior, high-stakes exam provider. Over months, Meazure made representation after representation to convince the State Bar that it would offer a seamless remote and in-person exam experience worthy of the California Bar Exam. But it is now clear that Meazure could not deliver on its promises.”
The complaint tells of glitches in the system that were apparent in a November 2024 “bar exam study” and a January 2025 “mock exam” but says that Meazure provided assurances that all problems had been remedied. That, the pleading alleges, was a false representation, reciting:
“Only roughly 4,200 applicants sat for the February exam—less than one-fifth of Meazure’s touted 25,000 exam capacity and fewer than original estimates for February—yet Meazure still could not deliver an exam ‘free from disruption.’ Far from it. Two days before the February 2025 Bar Exam, the basic spell check feature was still causing Meazure’s platform to freeze, so Meazure had to suspend spell check. Then on exam day, chaos ensued. Remote and in-person test takers could not enter Meazure’s platform without significant delays, and once they were in the platform (if they were able to enter the platform at all), they often were unable to submit responses, and experienced frequent crashing and freezing.”
It continues:
“Once (and if) test takers were able to access Meazure’s testing platform, many were unable to use basic word processing and document review tools that Meazure had repeatedly represented would be functional. Test takers reported that copy and paste, highlighting, and annotation functions did not work. Even basic typing exhibited significant lags, and test takers’ screens scrolled on their own, without prompting. Proctors were incapable of helping test takers and appeared insufficiently trained to administer the Bar Exam. Meazure’s faulty testing platform and its poor administration of the Bar Exam wreaked havoc at an already stressful time for test takers.”
Pre-Test Confusion
The complaint recites foul-ups prior to the actual two-day exam, including many of those who has signed up for the test being told their assignments to locations had been cancelled without an advisement as to where they had been transferred. The State Bar on Feb. 13, 2025, announced that those who had paid to be tested could get their money back or could take the July exam, instead, at no additional cost.
Noted in the pleading is that “[t]he State Bar also offered to provide reimbursements for certain, reassigned applicants who had booked nonrefundable cross-country travel and lodging based on the initial test center availability along with travel stipends to applicants with testing accommodations who had to travel longer than promised distances to reach their testing location.”
ProctorU, which bills itself as “the world’s leading test proctoring company,” was headquartered in Livermore, California, in Alameda County, until 2017 when it moved to Birmingham, Alabama.
Copyright 2026, Metropolitan News Company