The California State Bar has raised the bar passage standard to 40% for California-accredited law schools:
Last month, the State Bar’s Committee of Bar Examiners voted
to adopt changes to its guidelines for accredited law schools to specify that they
must maintain a cumulative bar examination rate of at least 40% in order
to keep their status. …Sean McCoy, chair of the
committee, said the change was necessary to help clarify some of the standards used
to judge law schools’ curriculum. “Prior to this change, the
version of the accreditation rules and guidelines stated that the cumulative
success on the bar exam by graduates from a California accredited law school
was a factor the committee considered in evaluating the quality of a school's
legal education program,” McCoy wrote in an email. “However, the guidelines did
not establish a quantitative percentage or other definition of ‘cumulative
success,’ or specify a time period that would be used to measure that ‘cumulative
success.’ ” …
In the July 2012 exam, the California-accredited law schools had a 19.0% pass rate among first-time and repeat test-takers (133 of 699). Although none of the California ABA-accredited law schools fell below the 40% threshold, 12 out-of-state schools did:
- Florida Coastal: 14%
- Thomas Cooley: 16%
- Detroit, UNLV: 18%
- Gonzaga, Loyola-New Orleans: 20%
- Seattle: 21%
- Suffolk: 27%
- Phoenix: 31%
- Howard: 32%
- Connecticut: 33%
- Syracuse: 35%
(Hat Tip: Faculty Lounge.)
