Months ago, we learned that Kim Kardashian had completed her “law studies” course. Not to be confused with actual law school – Kim does not have a JD (Juris Doctor) degree, she has what amounts to a certificate of completion for her makeshift law studies. Still, that certificate was enough to get her a place to take the California Bar Exam, which she did about two months ago. She just got the results back in recent days. She did not pass. Which isn’t a huge surprise, considering Kim was literally just talking about how she used ChatGPT for “legal advice” on her law exams.
Kim Kardashian says she’s “not a lawyer yet.” Months after taking the California bar exam on July 29 and July 30, the SKIMS founder and reality star, 45, revealed her results on Saturday, Nov. 8.
In a candid Instagram Stories post, Kim shared that she failed to pass the exam — but is still determined to achieve her goal.
“Well…I’m not a lawyer yet, I just play a very well-dressed one on TV,” she wrote. “Six years into this law journey, and I’m still all in until I pass the bar. No shortcuts, no giving up – just more studying and even more determination.”
“Thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged me along the way so far. Failing short isn’t failure – it’s fuel. I was so close to passing the exam and that only motivated me even more. Let’s go!” she added.
Given just twice per year, the California bar exam consists of five one-hour essay questions, one 90-minute performance test and 200 multiple-choice questions.
According to the California State Bar’s website, approximately 16,000 people take the exam each year. The two-day test is rigorous, with a pass rate of 63.6% for those who took the exam in February.
For some reason, I always had the belief that the California Bar was “easier” compared to some other states’ bar exams. Isn’t New York’s Bar notoriously difficult? Let me look it up… while New York’s Bar exam is supposed to be really tough, California actually has the hardest exam, at least according to Google. So… Kim flunked a hard test after cheating and using AI on some of her law-studies tests. It is what it is. The only nice thing I’ll say is that it’s good that she’s not dissuaded – she’ll probably keep retaking the Bar until she passes. Study harder next time, Kim!
Photos courtesy of Kim’s IG.
Can’t knock her for this. The California Bar is well known to be very difficult. So I will say, try again Kim.
One of my smartest and dearest friends passed it on the 3rd try: I will never judge anyone for trying and failing!
I have a cousin who went to law school–I’m told she has issues taking tests–who still hasn’t passed the CA bar. (This is a topic we are Not Allowed To Discuss in the family, my mom just has to look if she made it every time quietly.) If Kim passed before my cousin, I woulda choked.
That said, don’t use ChatGPT next time, Kim.
“No shortcuts” – the woman using ChatGPT.
I wonder what’s driving her to do this? It’s not like she really needs this. I would have given up already.
Constant attention. Reattachment to her father. California law may require a person to be an attorney to collect referral fees for personal injury cases and she wants a new grift.
Don’t get me wrong, I admire her a lot for doing this. I just want to know why?
In the past she has said it was driven by her engagement on prison reform – essentially, that as she was advocating for that, she could not understand 50% of what decision-makers were telling her about it and she felt she had to raise her game. There’s a lot of things that are not to be emulated with the K. family. Getting herself educated so that she can be a better advocate for an issue she cares about : I would never slam her for that.
If I had KK’s money, I’d probably have eight degrees. I think it’s great that even though she doesn’t “need” it, she wants an education.
CA and NY are the hardest bar exams in the country. Most people don’t pass the first time. My sister almost had a nervous breakdown after the first day sitting. I had to pick her up at the hotel she was taking it at, take her out to talk her off the ledge, then stayed with her all night so she would sleep. Then we drove her back to the hotel for the last day’s test.
The day after finishing, she left the country for 2 mos. traveling around So East Asia with friends to keep from obsessing over the results (this was before everyone had a personal computer to check on it by refreshing their browsers). She called us up the day the results came out, and thankfully, she’d passed on the first try! She literally burst out a yell, and then cried in happiness. Thank God she passed; I couldn’t take the stress of her going through that again!
I had to stay in a hotel when I took it because it was an election year and the Republican Convention took over the usual testing site. The first day was horrible and being in a strange place didn’t help my sleeping situation. Second day was better, but I also put it out of my mind until results came out.
Congrats to your sister. She’s not the first or only one to have that reaction. As I said, I think they need to reform the exam. People should not be making themselves physically sick over it, but they are.
NY lawyer here. It is not true that most people don’t pass the first time around. The majority of people pass on the first try, particularly if they went to law school in state. That doesn’t make it less stressful, of course, but it is not such a cumbersome experience that most applicants can’t successfully pass on the first try.
@2131JAN – Awww. What a good sister you are!!! I remember when I started doing CPA exam – my car wouldn’t started on the day I’d scheduled the first section. Fortunately my daughter’s old car in the driveway started up fine; too bad it had no coffee cup holder 😵💫🥱😬
As for the pass rate, NCBE, National Council of Bar Examiners, posted 55% pass rate overall for July 2025 test taken by California’s 7,362 examinees, 70% pass rate for first-timers. But I read Business Insider article that said CA bar exam “faced criticism from test-takers due to testing software issues as well as some multiple-choice questions that were crafted with the assistance of AI. As a result, the Committee of Bar Examiners recommended score adjustments for applicants who took the exam in February.” Interestingly, the overall CA pass rate for February 2025 test was higher at 64%. Not sure if CA is still using questions formulated with AI…
The California Bar is notoriously difficult to pass. New York is very hard too, but a little less so.
They are implementing a new system that will allow lawyers to move states more easily without having to pass an entire new exam. Which makes sense, since lawyers are constantly having to research and learn anyway. As a former attorney I honestly think they should get rid of it for students who meet threshold criteria, looking at both grades and law school attended. At the very least they should reform it, because right now it’s a cluster. It’s borderline abusive.
No shame in her not passing. If she really wants to practice law she should try again, but I’m not sure why she feels the need to do so.
As a current attorney, I think they should abolish the bar exam requirement for graduates of accredited law schools. The bar exam is just another barrier preventing people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds from entering the profession (prep courses are pricey and you need some sort of economic cushion to spend months studying and not working)
I guess she forgot ChatGPT can’t take the exam for her. Better luck next time, but I can’t imagine anyone hiring her as a lawyer. Maybe all her work will be pro bono.
“No shortcuts” she says lmao. Girl you don’t even have a college degree! If she ever passes it, it’s not like a firm will hire her. She’s a joke.
COULD you imagine if you were going to trial and Kim Kardashian was your lawyer? With her frozen face and warped behind being like your honor, thats literally not what happened.
Thank you! Kim’s law studies have been the definition of a short cut. Maybe she should finish her undergrad degree? Oh wait, she can’t; University of Phoenix is now defunct.
While I don’t imagine for a second she’s actually going about it properly, I don’t want people to look at her as a representative example of clerkship programs. They are actually really cool and can produce extremely competent lawyers. California’s probably has its own requirements (EVERYTHING about California law has its own requirements), but in Washington state the clerkship program means that instead of spending three years and a hundred thousand dollars of debt on law school, you get a job working as a legal assistant or paralegal and spend four years doing additional study and coursework with a lawyer at your firm, and come out the other side qualified to take the Bar. With actual real-life experience in a working law firm and a particular specialty. And no debt.
Bragging on my wonderful nephew here. He passed in one try. Of course, he prepared intensively for many months. And, unlike Kim, he actually attended law school. And graduated! No shame in not passing the very difficult bar exam in one try but KK’s legal education seems shady af.
My Godson passed the NY bar on his first try. He spent all his time studying after he graduated. He spent months not doing anything besides eating, sleeping , using the bathroom and studying. Didn’t you post her “studying” by the pool? It would have made more sense for her to just get her BS on line and then go to law school, but that would require her to work. She thought the shortcut was the was going to be the easy way out.
That was the rigorous approach my nephew took as well. We couldn’t contact him. We had to wait to hear from him. I also think he was helped by having already passed the Illinois bar exam. As for KK, she’s used to succeeding by taking short cuts. I hadn’t realized she never even graduated from college. Yikes!
You can fake a lot of things in California, but unfortunately a law license isn’t one of them, it seems.
I wonder what is driving her to do it. Is it meant to prove to her detractors that actually, she is smart? Is it a midlife search for purpose or trying to connect with her father? Or is it a sign of an upcoming Kardashian law firm? I suspect the latter, but she wouldn’t have to be a lawyer herself to license the family name, so who knows? That’s where my mind went as soon as she started this whole saga, but if it is a grift, it’s been cooking for awhile.
Good for Kim for reaching for this, and not being slapped down. She will pass eventually.
I cannot help but think there is a reason you want to go to law school on top of an undergraduate education. This is a strange process to become a lawyer and I wonder how many other have gone this route.
She doesn’t have an undergraduate education.
Here’s the thing though–she said “six years into this journey” which means that if she had just started taking classes six years ago, she’d be close to graduating now (or even could have if she entered a specialized program that compresses undergrand into 3 years, making your senior year the first year of your law school, thus completing undergrad and law school in six years–they had it at U of MD, I went to law school with 20 year olds!).
I feel like she originally said she was using private tutors. That would have been better than chatgpt. Isn’t she like super rich? Why not splurge on the real thing? Odd
She had the childcare and the resources to get an undergrad degree and then go to law school. UCLA is right there! If this process has already taken her 6 years, she might have been better prepared if she had just gone the traditional route.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, yes! She could have just gone to school, earned her degrees, and would have been better prepared for her exams that way!!!
Please don’t take KK as a representative of the alternate paths to being a lawyer like clerkship. They are actually really cool programs that remove a lot of systemic barriers while still producing competent lawyers (I’d argue that a lawyer who went through a clerkship program will actually be a more effective lawyer right out the gates than one who went to law school, because they’ve been working in the law the whole time and know the practical ins and outs rather than just book theory. Long term it probably evens out)
Who would ever, ever take this woman seriously with the law?
I submit there are already plenty of lawyers who should not be taken seriously……..JD Vance, Rudy Guiliani, Nancy Grace and whomever represents Samantha Markle all come to mind, and that’s before any coffee.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of lawyers who have to be taken seriously, at least for a while (e.g. Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, newly pardoned Rudy Giulani, etc). And these are all people who are supposedly ‘better’ than Kim for having obtained an undergraduate degree, then a law degree.
Look, I’m the daughter, sister, and niece of criminal defense attorneys. It has instilled in me a firm belief that many, many people are seriously f–ked over by “justice” system, and I totally understand the urge to join the family business and stand up for them. I certainly wanted to do that when I was younger. But some of us simply do not have the aptitude for it, and it’s better to accept that rather than do some half-assed self-guided law studies and expect AI to help you. Kim is lucky in that she has a public platform, and for all her faults, I do respect what she has done in speaking up for prisoners who have more than paid for their crimes (or who shouldn’t have been imprisoned in the first place). I think she could better serve the cause of justice by continuing in that vein. Even if she eventually passes the exam, her makeshift studies would not inspire much faith in her abilities as a practicing attorney.
I passed the bar on the first try (not in CA). I said if I don’t pass it I am not retaking it again. The stress was insane. The process was expensive. Part of me wishes I hadn’t passed, I was a miserable lawyer before I paid off my student loans and peaced out of that shitty profession forever. Worst bosses ever. Worst hours ever. Worst pay when you calculate the hours I worked. I’m glad that chapter of my life is over.
A friend of mine took the CA bar, failed it the first try (she had the same rule as me not taking it again) and now she’s a successful screenwriter in LA. She never took it again and moved on quickly. A law degree is helpful, it opens doors and you learn how to think critically in law school. She was smart to move on and use the law degree to her advantage. I do have some friends that took it multiple times and eventually passed. They really wanted to be lawyers and there was no plan B.
Another friend has taken the NY bar over 15 times. Her life has been on hold forever she is obsessed with it, and I don’t know how she is doing other than failing it but I bet her score lowers each time she takes it – it’s messing with her psyche, her self esteem, and I bet she is second guessing half the answers. I hate this for her and wish she would just move on. But she can’t. She has been depressed on and off the last 20 years.
The missing piece for Kim is actually going to law school. It prepares you. It teaches you a certain way of thinking. There’s no shortcut for this process. If she really wants to be a lawyer she can start by going to college and then law school. I know there are people who pass it who don’t go this route but personally I wouldn’t recommend it. And you can go to law school and study hard and still not pass it but the odds lower even more when you shortcut the education part.
can confirm–being a lawyer sucks!! What did you end up doing instead? I found a job that I thought suited me well, unfortunately it’s for the federal government and life is so stressful now
Being a lawyer absolutely sucks! It’s the people in that profession that makes it the worst. On top of garbage hours it’s a long ass day dealing with shitty, terrible people.
I have an online retail business that is up and down. I can’t practice law in Canada since moving here it’s a totally different legal system. And frankly, I don’t miss it. I don’t miss one thing about it.
One of the reasons California’s bar exam has such a high rate of failure is because people who didn’t attend college or law school take it. Another reason is how it’s scored.
That 200 multiple choice part is “the multistate,” which every state except Louisiana includes as part of the bar exam. Pretty much everyone in the country is answering the same questions in 7 legal subjects.
The vast majority of attorneys, over 75%, pass the bar exam on the first try.
Most law schools have a drop out rate of 50%. I attended law school at night while working a demanding full time job, as were most of the 200 people in my graduating class. I am licensed in 3 states and 2 federal jurisdictions, having passed 2 state bar exams and a federal bar exam.
That woman claiming to have taken “no shortcuts” annoys me. “No shortcuts” means she knock off this nonsense and go to school to get the proper accreditations, starting with a bachelor’s degree.
Louisiana doesn’t bother with the multiple choice questions? Figures.
I’m curious about the essay questions–are they still written by hand? That might screw up the modern student any more, I’m thinking.
They don’t use the multistate portion because Louisiana follows civil law and not common law like the rest of the states.
It is a total vanity project for her. Another thing to feed her enormous ego. She has a team of private attorney tutors to spoon feed her information on her schedule at her mansion.
If she were serious and hardworking, she would have gone to get a bachelor’s, taken the LSAT, and applied to law school.
By definition, she has taken EVERY shortcut. I’m glad she didn’t pass on her first attempt. I hope she never passes – what mockery of the profession that would be.
And color me shocked that the Chat GPT-using, conspiracy theorist peddling, “I don’t believe in the moon landing” Kim failed.
This whole thing is a farce.
Person who dropped out of college after one year fails bar exam after shortcutting the next six years of necessary education and blowing off the normal three months of 24-7 bar exam prep, not a surprise.
Fascinating that she wrote “no shortcuts” regarding any of this since she literally took the shortcuts route of not having an undergraduate degree and not attending law school. Studying for the bar is a job. You should truly be doing nothing else in life for those 8(ish) weeks after law school graduation and the exam. You should also take a bar prep class. I question whether Kim did any of this the correct way. That said, she shouldn’t be surprised she didn’t pass. And if she chooses the same level of investment/commitment for the next time, she can expect the same result. By the time she takes the exam again, she’ll have been at it for 7 years, which is, coincidentally, the length of time it takes to get an undergraduate degree and a JD…
Well.. she gets attention this way.. and we all know Kimmie and all the K’s thrive on attention …. Plastic doll will eventually pass it or not .. just another angle to her ugly game
California is (I believe) the only state that lets you sit for the Bar exam without having gone to law school, and accordingly is known for being the hardest in the nation. I am licensed in California, Texas and New York and thought the CA exam was the hardest by far.
Vermont doesn’t require a JD either
Huey Long (Louisiana politician) passed the bar at 21 with no undergraduate degree and only one year of law school.
And look what happened to him!
😁
She looks like the robot from Ex Machina in that header photo.
A friend of mine moved to California from Virginia and he had to retake the California Bar at 45. He did it on the first try, but it was a serious amount of work.
In six years, she literally could’ve just attended college and just gotten the damn degree lmao. Might have even cost less in all likelihood, given what I imagine she’s paying in private tutelage. CA bar is the hardest in the country from what friends have told me, so you can’t just sashay through it. If she wanted a vanity project, she should have picked something in community philanthropy.