What California Bar Examinees Need to Know

• California bar examinees have reached a proposed $1.35 million settlement with Meazure Learning over the troubled February 2025 examination.
• Roughly 4,100 class members who submit claims are expected to receive at least $153, effectively refunding the mandatory laptop fee.
• The deal still requires court approval, with a preliminary approval hearing scheduled for January 7, 2027 before U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar.

By Samuel López | USA Herald

CALIFORNIA - Thousands of aspiring California lawyers who paid to take one of the most important examinations of their careers may finally get some money back from the company whose technology became part of the problem.

ProctorU, Inc., doing business as Meazure Learning, has agreed to a proposed $1.35 million class-action settlement arising from its role in administering California's February 2025 bar examination. The agreement was disclosed in a September 18 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The case is In re: ProctorU California Bar Exam Litigation, No. 4:25-cv-02095-JST, a consolidated federal action before Judge Jon S. Tigar.

The February 2025 examination was California's first bar exam offered through a combination of remote and in-person testing. What followed was anything but routine. Examinees reported login failures, crashes, frozen computers, unsaved answers, problems using copy-and-paste functions, proctoring difficulties and inadequate technical support.

Under the proposed settlement, approximately 4,100 class members can submit claims. Court filings indicate the fund is large enough to provide each claimant at least $153, matching the laptop fee examinees paid to use the testing platform. Remaining funds available for class members would be distributed under the settlement's allocation terms.

The settlement also calls for proposed service awards of $10,000 each for seven named plaintiffs. Plaintiffs' attorneys may seek up to $450,000 in fees, along with nearly $28,000 in litigation expenses. Any remaining unclaimed money is slated for the California Lawyers Foundation, subject to court approval.

Meazure has also agreed to conduct quality checks before administering future bar examinations, giving the settlement a component that goes beyond monetary relief.

But the public record shows this was not simply a story about one malfunctioning vendor.

A 2026 California State Auditor investigation found that the State Bar contracted with Meazure without first clearly defining business requirements or establishing criteria for evaluating the vendor's performance. Auditors also found that problems involving computer freezes, crashes and error messages had surfaced during pretesting before the February examination.

The State Bar separately sued Meazure over the failed administration. That litigation ended in July 2026 when Meazure agreed to pay the State Bar $5.25 million and waive an additional $1.36 million invoice.

For examinees, however, the latest settlement is different. It puts compensation directly into the hands of the people who paid to use the system.

It does not attempt to place an individual dollar figure on lost study time, stress, disrupted concentration, delayed employment or any possible effect on a candidate's performance. Instead, the proposed deal centers on something every claimant can readily measure — the $153 technology fee paid for an examination platform that did not perform as expected.

Judge Tigar is scheduled to consider preliminary approval on January 7, 2027, at 2:00 p.m. in Oakland.

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