Third District Court of Appeals Justice Arthur Scotland. Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM

The California Supreme Court has chosen a former colleague of Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye to investigate how the state bar erroneously disclosed topics on the July bar exam before the test's administration.

Arthur Scotland, a retired presiding justice on the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento, will lead the investigation along with his law firm, Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Gross & Leoni, the court announced after its regular conference Wednesday.

Scotland and his colleagues will be paid up to $60,000 for their work, according to a copy of the legal services agreement provided by the Supreme Court. Those costs will be covered by the state bar, a Judicial Council spokesman said. The former justice will start work immediately and is expected to submit his findings by November at the latest.

Scotland's investigation will be separate from one launched by a lawyer hired by the state bar earlier this month. The bar is paying former lawyer and mediator Jean Gaskill, once a partner with now-defunct Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison in San Francisco, $200 an hour plus expenses to detail how a bar staffer accidentally sent the exam's essay topics to 16 law school deans the week before the test.

Scotland served on the Third District court from 1989 to 2010. Like Cantil-Sakauye he served in the administration of Gov. George Deukmejian—he as cabinet secretary, she as a deputy legal affairs secretary and later a deputy legislative secretary. The two also served five years together on the state appellate court.

California bar leaders say the exam topics were "inadvertently" released when a bar staffer drafted a memo asking law school deans if they would be interested in attending a grading session for the July 2019 bar exam. The second page of the memo listed the six topics the exam would cover and asked deans to rank their preferences for monitoring by topic.

Such invitations traditionally go out after the exam. But the bar staffer sent the memo early this year, leading one law school dean to alert bar leaders about the disclosure the Saturday before the exam. That Saturday night, the bar sent an email to all registered test-takers that made the topics public in an attempt to ensure that no one had an unfair advantage, bar leaders said, 

"The court understands and shares the concerns that this disclosure has generated," members of the California Supreme Court said in a prepared statement issued a day before the exam.

"Exercising its oversight responsibilities over matters relating to bar admissions, the court will ensure that there is a thorough and independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the disclosure, and that appropriate steps are taken to protect the integrity of the bar examination and identify and address any consequences."