The California Bar Association has officially acknowledged the use of artificial intelligence in the preparation of a professional exam that many lawyers failed due to technical glitches and poor-quality questions, snob.ru reports with reference to The Guardian.
The February 2025 exam was plagued with technical issues. Participants reported regular crashes of the online platform before the test even began, difficulties saving essays, delays in displaying on the screen, regular error messages, and the inability to copy and paste text. These technical glitches led to a massive failure rate among lawyers.
The investigation found that the board hired a third-party company to generate exam questions using artificial intelligence, then paid for final approval of the content. The exam included 100 questions from education company Kaplan, 48 questions from the first-year exam, and 23 multiple-choice questions generated by the AI. It was the last category that caused the most trouble.
Mary Basic, associate dean for academic skills at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, expressed shock that the exam questions were not written by professional lawyers. The licensing board has now asked the state Supreme Court to review the results of the February exam.
