Sophia Park, 17, and her family huddled around her laptop one evening this month as she entered her details onto the State Bar of California’s website and clicked “Check pass list.”

Sophia’s smile grew as she read the results: She passed the July 2024 general bar exam, a requirement to be licensed as a practicing lawyer in the Golden State. Her family clapped and hugged her.

“I am very happy and excited,” Sophia said in a video that the family uploaded to YouTube.

The California bar is among the most difficult licensing requirements exams in the country, and just under 54 percent of the 8,291 people who took it in July passed.

But Sophia’s accomplishment goes beyond that. At 17 years and 8 months old, she is believed to be the youngest person to pass the state’s bar exam, besting the previous record-holder: her older brother, Peter, who passed the exam in November 2023, when he was 17 years and 11 months old.

Sophia achieved this feat while taking advanced courses online from home, enabling her to graduate from high school, college and law school in about four years.

After she turns 18 in March, Sophia will join her brother Peter at the Tulare County District Attorney’s Office in Tulare County, Calif., as a prosecutor. She has been working there as a law clerk since January 2024, writing motions, sending discovery — or case material — to defense attorneys and conducting preliminary trials.