As you may be aware, the State Bar is transitioning to a new vendor for the multiple-choice section of the California Bar Exam (CBX), effective February 2025. The vendor, Kaplan LLC, has begun drafting new multiple-choice questions which are now ready for review and content validation. The content validation process involves panel review of 100 questions over a two-day period. Participants will review 50 questions daily, first individually then collectively, with other panel members.
The State Bar is seeking input from a variety of perspectives for the content validation process; specifically, we seek to recruit three categories of reviewers: newly licensed attorneys (licensed within the last three years), those who supervise newly licensed attorneys, and law school faculty familiar with bar exam preparation. There is no need to be extremely familiar with the multiple-choice questions. Given that all licensed attorneys have sat and passed the CBX, that experience provides sufficient knowledge to participate in this process.
The sessions are being scheduled over weekends and for exam security reasons must happen in-person. They are full days, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The State Bar will cover the costs of travel, lodging, and meals, in accordance with the State Bar’s travel policy.
The next review session is:
- TWO DAY SESSION: December 14-15, 2024 (Saturday & Sunday) in Los Angeles, CA at the LA State Bar Office at 845 S Figueroa St. LA, CA
There will be more sessions scheduled in 2025. We have had instances where a panel member is only able to attend one day (not Saturday and Sunday), and this helps us as well.
Each session starts with a training conducted by the psychometrician to help each panel member accomplish their assignment. During the content validation sessions, panel members will be asked to review the question for four separate criteria:
- Does the question measure minimum competence?
- Does the question contain any implicit/explicit bias?
- Is the question legally sound?
- Does it appear to be in an appropriate Multiple-Choice Question format?
If you are interested in volunteering as a panel member, or have any follow up questions about this project, please reach out to Amy Nuñez at amy.nunez@calbar.ca.gov or to Jasmine Heu at jasmine.heu@calbar.ca.gov.
