The California Supreme Court recently rebuffed the State Bar's plan to revise its bar examination, which would have featured a novel set of privately contracted questions and an experimental test that awarded real-exam bonus points to volunteers. This is the latest in a long series of dubious changes to California's bar exam, from reducing the number of days to cutting exam locations. Most of these reforms have been justified by cost savings, and conserving taxpayer money seems at first a good call, especially for a cash-strapped state agency. But protecting the public—not thrift—is the bar's primary regulatory purpose, and its focus on cutting corners has arguably diluted the bar exam from the nation's hardest to something that weakens public protection.

California's bar has long suffered from financial woes. Its general fund revenue (or about a quarter of its overall budget) comes mainly from attorney licensing fees. That fee amount is set by statute, which turns out to be a major vulnerability for the state's least-influential administrative agency. With few friends and no political clout, the bar's fee bill is often a political football in Sacramento. The legislature sometimes holds the fee bill hostage as leverage for whatever agenda is in play, as it did when pushing the bar to split off the sections. And governors have threatened to veto fee bills.