How Meazure Learning Allegedly Sabotaged the California Bar Exam.

Corporate Misconduct Case Study: Meazure Learning, Inc. & Its Impact on Aspiring Lawyers

In a damning indictment of corporate responsibility, Meazure Learning, Inc. stands accused of turning the most crucial test of a lawyer’s career into a traumatic ordeal of technical failures and broken promises. According to a class-action lawsuit, the company’s exam software, which thousands of aspiring California lawyers were forced to pay for and use, repeatedly crashed during the February 2025 California Bar Examination. Test-takers allegedly faced a nightmare of frozen screens, lost answers, and non-functional tools, effectively sabotaging their chances of passing one of the nation’s most difficult professional licensing exams.

Continue reading to understand the full scope of the allegations and the systemic failures that enabled this unmitigated disaster.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Inside the Allegations: Corporate Misconduct
3. Regulatory Capture & Loopholes
4. Profit-Maximization at All Costs
5. The Economic Fallout
6. Public Health Risks: The Emotional and Psychological Toll
7. Exploitation of a Captive Market
8. The PR Machine: How Corporate Spin Masks Failure
9. Wealth Disparity & Corporate Greed
10. Global Parallels: A Pattern of Predation
11. Corporate Accountability Fails the Public
12. Pathways for Reform & Consumer Advocacy
13. Legal Minimalism: Doing Just Enough to Stay Plausibly Legal
14. This Is the System Working as Intended
15. Conclusion
16. Frivolous or Serious Lawsuit?

Introduction

For thousands of law graduates, the California Bar Exam is the final, grueling hurdle before they can begin their careers. It is a milestone defined by immense stress, sleepless nights, and staggering financial investment. In February 2025, that inherent stress metastasized into outright trauma, not because of the exam’s difficulty, but because the very tool required to take it, provided by Meazure Learning, Inc., catastrophically failed.

This was not a minor glitch. It was, as alleged in the legal filings, a complete technical breakdown. The Meazure Exam Platform, which test-takers were required to pay for, crashed, froze, and malfunctioned repeatedly, transforming a high-stakes test into an exercise in futility and despair. This incident represents more than just a software bug; it is a distressing illustration of the consequences of neoliberal capitalism, where essential public services are handed over to private corporations whose primary incentive is profit, often at the expense of the public good.

Inside the Allegations: Corporate Misconduct

The class-action complaint filed against Meazure Learning, Inc. paints a picture of a company that had one critical job and failed spectacularly. The company was contracted to administer the February 2025 California Bar Exam, the first time the exam was offered in a new remote-friendly format. The allegations state that Meazure’s platform was not merely flawed, but fundamentally defunct for many users.

Test-takers, including the named plaintiffs Laura Perjanik, Samuel McClain, and Victoria Tulsidas, experienced a litany of technical failures. These included server crashes indicating the system was under “heavy load,” the inability to open the software, random shutdowns, and non-functional copy-paste features that forced students to waste precious time retyping answers. Meazure had expressly promised a suite of features including a digital notepad, timer, spell check, highlighters, and annotation tools; these, too, failed to work, stripping applicants of the very functionalities designed to help them navigate the grueling, timed exam.

The complaint alleges that Meazure knew about these issues in advance. Applicants reported severe problems during mock exams in January 2025, including being unable to complete the practice test or being randomly kicked out. Just two days before the exam, the State Bar acknowledged reports of issues with typing, deleting, and copy-pasting, claiming Meazure had “resolved” them. This representation was false. The problems persisted, leading to what test-takers described as a “disaster,” a “Guantánamo gauntlet,” and “the worst experience of my entire life.”

Regulatory Capture & Loopholes

The breakdown of the February 2025 bar exam highlights a critical failure of public oversight, a hallmark of deregulation under neoliberal capitalism. The State Bar of California, in its push to modernize and cut costs, contracted with a sole vendor, Meazure, to handle the high-stakes administration of the exam. This decision created a monopoly where nearly 5,600 applicants had no choice but to pay Meazure’s fee and use its platform if they wanted to take the test on a computer.

This single-vendor model effectively eliminated competition and consumer choice, leaving thousands of aspiring lawyers captive to a single corporation’s competence. The complaint suggests a rushed deployment of the new remote format, announced in mid-2024 for a February 2025 launch. This “fast-tracked” process, aimed at saving an estimated $3.8 million annually, appears to have prioritized cost-cutting over the careful design and rigorous testing of a system responsible for thousands of professional careers.

The State Bar’s role appears to have been one of a passive intermediary, relaying Meazure’s instructions and, ultimately, its false assurances that known technical issues were resolved. This hands-off approach exemplifies regulatory capture, where a public body becomes beholden to the interests and capabilities of the private entity it is supposed to be overseeing. The system lacked the necessary checks and balances to prevent a private company’s failure from becoming a public disaster.

Profit-Maximization at All Costs

At the heart of this debacle lies a business model that incentivizes profit above all else. Meazure Learning, Inc. collected licensing fees from over 5,600 test-takers for the February 2025 exam. The complaint alleges the company did this with prior knowledge that its platform was riddled with technical problems, suggesting a conscious decision to proceed with a defective product rather than risk the revenue from the exam.

The legal filing asserts that Meazure failed to invest in sufficient infrastructure, servers, and server space to handle the foreseeable number of users. This is a classic example of a business externalizing its costs. Instead of spending the necessary capital to ensure a functional product, the company passed the cost of its failure onto its captive customers in the form of extreme stress, lost time, and potentially derailed careers.

The entire arrangement was built on a foundation of profit. The State Bar sought to save millions, and Meazure profited by “raking in cash” from thousands of applicants. This profit motive appears to have superseded the company’s fundamental obligation to deliver the service it was paid for: a working test platform. The complaint alleges that Meazure, despite knowing the immense personal and financial stakes for each applicant, chose to gamble their futures on a system that was not ready.

The Economic Fallout

The financial consequences for the individuals caught in this corporate malpractice are staggering. The complaint details the immense personal investment made by each plaintiff and class member. This includes not just the fees paid directly to the State Bar and to Meazure, but also the thousands of dollars spent on expensive test-preparation classes and the hundreds of hours dedicated to studying.

For many, this preparation represents a period of foregone income, as they take time off from work to focus solely on the exam. The technical failures essentially rendered this entire investment of time and money worthless for those unable to complete the test. The offer of a “free retake” in July is described as “cold comfort,” as it does not compensate for the months of lost potential earnings as a licensed attorney, nor the additional time and expense required to study all over again.

Plaintiff Laura Perjanik, for instance, spent six hours trying to complete a single one-hour essay. This lost time, multiplied across thousands of test-takers, represents a massive loss of human potential and economic opportunity. The lawsuit seeks monetary redress for these harms, arguing that the applicants paid for a functional exam platform and received a “defunct” one, depriving them of the benefit of their bargain.

Public Health Risks: The Emotional and Psychological Toll

The harm inflicted by Meazure’s failures extends far beyond the financial. The lawsuit details the severe emotional distress suffered by the plaintiffs, transforming an already stressful experience into a traumatic one. The complaint for negligent infliction of emotional distress underscores the very real public health consequences of such corporate negligence.

Test-takers described being “legit traumatized,” shaky, and experiencing labored breathing. Plaintiff Laura Perjanik was “crying, in tears” as she toggled helplessly between online proctors and tech support, neither of which could solve her problem. Another user reported feeling like they were in a “fucking car accident” or had survived a “bear attack.” This is not the language of mere inconvenience; it is the language of profound psychological distress.

Meazure had a duty to provide a test platform free of defects that would allow users to take the exam. By breaching that duty, the company created an environment of chaos, anxiety, and panic. The complaint argues this emotional distress was a direct and foreseeable consequence of the company’s negligence in offering a dysfunctional product for such a high-stakes event.

Exploitation of a Captive Market

The relationship between Meazure Learning and the bar applicants was not one of a typical consumer and business; it was one of fundamental exploitation. Aspiring lawyers were a captive market, forced to use Meazure’s platform if they wished to type their exam, a significant advantage over handwriting. The complaint makes clear there was no other option. Applicants were not given a choice of remote proctoring software and could not type the exam without using Meazure’s platform.

This monopoly power allowed Meazure to operate with impunity. Applicants were required to pay Meazure’s “laptop fees” for the “licensing software,” turning a public-service function into a mandatory transaction with a private, for-profit company. Meazure had a duty to these test-takers, who were compelled to use its platform to pursue their professional livelihoods. The company’s total failure to provide a working product in exchange for this mandatory fee represents a profound breach of that duty and an exploitation of its coerced customer base.

Community Impact: Local Lives Undermined

The fallout from the exam’s technical failure reverberates beyond individual financial losses; it has undermined an entire community of future legal professionals in California. The California Bar Exam is the primary gateway to practicing law in the state, as California does not have reciprocity with other state bars. Passing the exam is a requirement for the vast majority of law graduates hoping to work as attorneys in the state.

By disrupting the exam, Meazure delayed the careers of thousands of applicants who may now have to wait until November 2025 or later to be admitted, even if they retake and pass the July exam. This delay has a cascading effect on the legal community, stalling the influx of new talent into law firms, public interest organizations, and government agencies. The complaint underscores this systemic harm, noting that those who fail the exam “cannot earn livelihoods as lawyers in California,” a failure that Meazure’s actions made more likely.

The PR Machine: How Corporate Spin Masks Failure

In the days leading up to the exam, as alarm grew among applicants over software glitches, Meazure’s response was not one of transparent crisis management but of corporate spin designed to placate and proceed. The lawsuit alleges a critical moment of misrepresentation. On February 23, just two days before the exam, the State Bar, relaying information from Meazure, acknowledged “reports of issues in the Meazure Learning platform” but then claimed that “these issues have been resolved”.

The complaint states this representation was unequivocally “false”. The software’s subsequent collapse during the exam suggests this was not a good-faith mistake but a deliberate attempt to suppress concerns and push forward with a known-defective product.

Furthermore, when Meazure discovered its promised spellcheck feature was causing additional problems, its solution was not to fix the issue but simply to turn the feature off, breaking yet another promise to applicants. These actions paint a picture of a company prioritizing its operational timeline and public image over its contractual obligations and the well-being of its users.

Wealth Disparity & Corporate Greed

The Meazure case is a depressing illustration of modern wealth disparity, where corporate entities are insulated from the consequences of their failures while individuals bear the full cost. Meazure “raked in cash” from the more than 5,600 applicants required to pay its fees. This revenue was collected for a service the company allegedly failed to deliver, creating a situation where Meazure was unjustly enriched at the expense of students.

In steep contrast to Meazure’s profits stands the immense, uncompensated investment of the test-takers. They spent thousands on expensive test-preparation classes, paid hefty fees to both the State Bar and Meazure, and dedicated hundreds of hours to unpaid study. The legal complaint argues that Meazure’s offer of a future exam retake is an inadequate remedy precisely because it ignores this vast disparity; it places the burden of remediation back onto the victims, who must once again invest time and money to prepare for another attempt, while the corporation retains its profits from the initial failure!

Global Parallels: A Pattern of Predation

While the details of the Meazure lawsuit are specific to the California Bar Exam, the underlying pattern is tragically familiar. Across the globe, the delegation of critical public functions—from education and testing to healthcare and infrastructure—to for-profit corporations has often led to similar results. This case is not an aberration but a reflection of a systemic trend under neoliberalism where the logic of profit-maximization conflicts with the delivery of reliable public services.

The model of a single, private vendor securing an exclusive government contract, only to under-invest in infrastructure and fail during a critical moment, has been seen in other high-stakes testing environments. These failures consistently create crises for the individuals who are forced to rely on them, whether they are students taking university entrance exams or professionals seeking licensure. The Meazure case serves as another data point in a much larger story about the perils of privatization and the vulnerability of a public dependent on corporations that are not fully accountable for their failures.

Corporate Accountability Fails the Public

The remedies offered before the filing of the lawsuit demonstrate how corporate accountability often fails the public in practice. In response to the growing chaos, the State Bar offered applicants the chance to withdraw from the February exam for a refund or to receive a free retake in July if they proceeded and failed. The complaint dismisses these offers as “cold comfort” and “inadequate”.

These pre-emptive gestures fail as true accountability because they do not make the victims whole. A refund or retake does not compensate for the hundreds of hours of lost study time, the money spent on preparation courses, the emotional distress and trauma of the experience, or the significant economic opportunity cost of a delayed legal career. True accountability would require the corporation to bear the full cost of its alleged negligence. Instead, the burden of recovery was placed squarely on the shoulders of the test-takers, a classic strategy that protects corporate interests over public welfare.

Pathways for Reform & Consumer Advocacy

The very existence of this class-action lawsuit points toward the most effective pathway for reform: collective action. When individuals with relatively modest claims band together, they can challenge a large corporation that would otherwise overwhelm them.

Beyond litigation, this case highlights the urgent need for structural reform in how public services are contracted. Potential reforms could include ending single-vendor monopolies for critical services and requiring multiple, pre-certified software options for test-takers. Furthermore, stronger state-level oversight, including mandatory third-party audits of testing software and infrastructure before a high-stakes exam, could provide a necessary check on corporate negligence. This incident should serve as a catalyst for creating a regulatory environment where public trust is no longer a commodity to be outsourced and abandoned.

Legal Minimalism: Doing Just Enough to Stay Plausibly Legal

Meazure’s alleged conduct leading up to the exam exemplifies the concept of legal minimalism—the practice of doing the absolute minimum required to create a defensible position, rather than genuinely solving a problem. The company’s actions, as relayed by the State Bar, were not about ensuring a functional exam but about managing liability. The public statement that known technical issues “have been resolved” is the cornerstone of this strategy.

This single (false) statement allowed the exam to proceed and provided a veneer of due diligence. It was an act of formal, not substantive, compliance. Similarly, disabling the malfunctioning spellcheck feature instead of fixing it was a minimalist solution that allowed the company to sidestep a technical hurdle while simultaneously degrading the promised quality of the service. In a system that rewards such behavior, corporations learn that the appearance of compliance is often more profitable than the reality of performance.

This Is the System Working as Intended

Ultimately, the Meazure disaster should not be viewed as a system that broke, but as a system that performed exactly as it was designed. A framework that prioritizes millions in cost-savings for a state agency and fee-based revenue for a private contractor over the stability and sanctity of a professional licensing exam will predictably produce such catastrophic failures. The harm experienced by thousands of aspiring lawyers was not an unfortunate side effect; it was the foreseeable result of a neoliberal logic that treats public goods as markets for profit extraction.

The complaint alleges that Meazure failed to invest in adequate infrastructure to handle a foreseeable number of users. In a capitalist system, a company will often invest only up to the point where the risk of failure is deemed financially acceptable to its own bottom line, without regard for the externalized costs imposed on others.

The trauma, the lost time, and the delayed careers of the test-takers were simply costs that Meazure Learning, Inc. did not have to carry on its own balance sheet.

Conclusion

The story of the February 2025 California Bar Exam is a cautionary tale for the modern age. It reveals the deep-seated vulnerabilities that arise when essential public functions are entrusted to private, for-profit entities whose incentives are fundamentally misaligned with the public good. The thousands of aspiring lawyers who sat for that exam did their job; they studied, they prepared, and they invested their futures in the promise of a fair test.

According to the allegations, Meazure Learning, Inc. did not do its job, and the result was a human and professional catastrophe.

This legal battle is about more than just a refund for a faulty piece of software. It is a fight for accountability, a demand that corporations cannot be allowed to profit from the critical junctures in people’s lives without being held responsible for the consequences of their failures. The outcome of this case will send a powerful message about whether the public will be protected from corporate negligence or left to suffer the fallout of a system that too often prioritizes the bottom line over all else.

Frivolous or Serious Lawsuit?

This lawsuit is the definition of a serious and legitimate legal action. The complaint is not based on vague dissatisfaction but on specific, documented, and widespread technical failures that allegedly occurred during one of the most high-stakes professional exams in the country. The lawsuit is brought by named plaintiffs detailing concrete personal and financial harm, from hours of lost time during a timed test to the severe emotional distress of watching their career prospects dissolve on a frozen computer screen.

The legal claims themselves—including breach of express warranty, violations of consumer protection laws, and negligent infliction of emotional distress—are grounded in well-established legal principles. Given the thousands of individuals in the proposed class who were allegedly subjected to the same defunct platform after being required to pay a fee, this class action represents a meaningful and necessary vehicle for seeking redress.

It addresses a clear and substantial grievance, making it a vital challenge to corporate conduct and a demand for basic competence and accountability.