Walters: Botched lawyer exam is California’s latest entry in its hall of shame

Is there something in California s water that induces the state s bureaucrats to make boneheaded errors of judgment It would seem so given the sorry history of monumental screwups Numerous of the state establishment s wrongheaded actions involve abortive efforts to use advanced machinery The poster child for those high-tech basket cases has been Financial Information System for California dubbed FI Cal which was supposed to be a comprehensive financial management system but has struggled for decades to become reliably functional Its constant delays and cost overruns revealed that despite California s global role in apparatus innovation the state bureaucracy has been chronically unable to implement systems that work as promised Another tech fiasco occurred in the court system The state Judicial Council and the Administrative Office of the Courts launched a project in that was supposed to be a centralized situation management system It was so deficient that after a decade of wheel-spinning costing more than a half-billion dollars the project was abandoned The the majority spectacular example of mismanagement is the state s Employment Enhancement Department s attempt to distribute billions of dollars in unemployment insurance benefits to those who lost jobs during the COVID- pandemic Not only did the EDD fail to deliver payments to several workers who needed them in a timely manner but it sent tens of billions of dollars in payments to fraudsters who gamed the system California doesn t need another entrant on its list of managerial failures but it has one in what happened when the State Bar changed its test of aspiring lawyers The licensing agency was feeling a financial pinch and formulated its own test to save money When the exam was administered in February it was a tragedy The online testing platforms repeatedly crashed before a few applicants even started the Los Angeles Times revealed Others struggled to finish and save essays experienced screen lags and error messages and could not copy and paste text from test questions into the exam s response field a function authorities had stated would be workable Ever since State Bar executives exam takers legislators and state Supreme Court justices have been arguing over what should be done with the obviously flawed results especially after it was revealed that the agency used artificial intelligence to formulate exam questions without making that known Last week the Supreme Court lowered the passing outcome for the February exam and ordered the State Bar to dump its new system and return to the traditional test format On Monday the State Bar broadcasted that with the lower passing scores of February exam takers passed as well as of those who took a one-day exam meaning the state has new lawyers Related Articles New law makes California ERs key to helping casualties of domestic violence human trafficking Trump won t axe Head Start Bay Area families are still worried Opinion California tax credits needed to keep the Hollywood dream alive California lawmakers are trying once more to pass sweeping changes to charter school oversight Here s what they want California legislators form a new group to prepare for Olympics and World Cup Here s what they have planned Simultaneously the State Bar reported it was suing Measure Learning the vendor that administered the botched February exam for fraud The tragedy also claimed the State Bar s executive director Leah T Wilson Wilson mentioned she would step down in July when her annual contract is set to expire Despite our best intentions the experiences of applicants for the February Bar Exam totally were unacceptable and I fully recognize the frustration and stress this experience caused Wilson commented While there are no words to assuage those emotions I do sincerely apologize Wilson s apologetic comment is a refreshing departure from the evasion of accountability that traditionally accompanies official debacles That s progress of a sort but not making bad decisions would be preferable Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist