(Subscription required) California’s Supreme Court on Wednesday approved use of the NextGen Uniform Bar Exam starting in July 2028, officially ending the state’s brief diversion into trying to develop its own unique lawyer-licensing test. Their order directs the state bar’s Committee of Bar Examiners to create a California-specific component to “accompany” the NextGen exam starting with the July 2029 administration.

(Subscription required) The percentage of U.S. federal civil cases filed by self-represented litigants hit 16.8% in 2025, marking a jump from the 2005-2022 average of 11%, and many of these more recent pro se cases involve AI-generated filings. Experts say courts must act, or the mounting caseloads will add even more strain to a judiciary already fatigued by growing workloads and underfunding.

It was the first time any of the justices answered questions from lawmakers since 2019, and the discussion before House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees quickly moved to other topics, including the court’s emergency docket, ethics rules and harsh rhetoric targeting the justices. 

Testing vendor Meazure Learning has agreed to pay $5.25 million to the State Bar of California to settle a lawsuit the agency filed after its problem-plagued February 2025 bar exam, ​the state bar said Monday.