Image by PromesaArtStudioIn late March, Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, amended a spot bill, SB 47, to order the State Auditor to conduct an audit of the February 2025 bar exam. The bill would direct the auditor to submit findings “as soon as possible” to the Bar’s board of trustees, the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court and the Senate Judiciary Committee and its Assembly counterpart.
John Eastman, photo via Associated PressJohn Eastman has been alternatively described as a brilliant legal scholar, a mild-mannered political animal and co-conspirator in a plot to illegally overturn an election. But just who is John Eastman really? Since he transmogrified from a relatively anonymous, dial-a-quote law professor in Orange County to one of the supposed masterminds of Donald Trump’s Hail Mary ploy to hold onto the presidency, Eastman and his once-sterling reputation have been irrevocably tarnished, putting both his career and freedom in jeopardy.
A gavel in a California courtroom. (Photo: bikeriderlondon, via Shutterstock)The agency that protects Californians from unethical lawyers faces an uncertain future because of complaints about its ability to do its job. For the first time ever, the state Assembly and Senate this year were unable to agree on a bill to set the annual dues that lawyers pay to the State Bar of California because of disagreements over the extent of changes needed at the troubled agency.