Law schools, accreditation administrators and advocates must grapple with the challenges of churning out qualified lawyers without unfairly disadvantaging students.
One potential reform, tightening law schools’ accreditation standards, was resoundingly rejected by the American Bar Association’s (ABA) House of Delegates. The measure would have required 75% of a given law school’s graduates who take the bar to pass within two years. However, it was voted down 88-334, according to information from the ABA.
Ultimately, the rule’s fate in still in the air. Another meeting is scheduled for Feb. 21 to Feb. 23.
The vote on Resolution 105, with respect to Standard 316, took place at the ABA’s Midyear Meeting in Law Vegas, where delegates considered a number of policy items. According to the association, the change will be returned to the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar for further review.
This was not the first time the proposal has been considered and rejected.
One objection to the change is its potential impact in representation in the legal field. The Goal III entities, tasked with promoting diversity and combatting bias, penned a letter in opposition of the proposed change prior to the Las Vegas conference.
“The proposed changes to Standard 316, the bar passage rule, will have an adverse impact upon diversity within legal education, the legal profession, and the entire educational pipeline,” the letter reads. “We encourage the Council to abandon the revised bar passage rule at least until it conducts further analysis of the effects of proposed changes on access to the profession for underrepresented lawyers.”
Barry Currier, managing director for the ABA law school accreditation process, acknowledged the complicated nature of the reform.
“The council understands this is a complex matter,” said Currier in an ABA news release. He adds that “[the council] will consider a report on the concerns of the House of Delegates before making any final decision.”
California Heading Into the Valley
One of the worst performing states, California, has seen a precipitous drop in its passage rate in recent years. Bloomberg Law reported a number of states have seen declining bar passage rates, but California has dipped to 40%, almost 10 percentage points lower than July of 2017.
A report from ACS Ventures shows the state’s rate fluctuated between 49% and 54% from 2007 to 2013, before dipping to 40% in 2016. Nationally, the rate has fallen from 71% in 2008 to 58% in 2016, according to the study.
Marquette, University of Wisconsin Set the Bar in 2018
According to an analysis of the schools with the best first-time passage rates from U.S. News and World Report, Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin each had perfect scores in 2018. The top 10, according to that analysis are as follows:
- Marquette University, 100%
- University of Wisconsin—Madison, 100%
- Yale University, 99%
- University of Michigan—Ann Arbor, 97.9%
- University of Chicago, 97.7%
- University of Pennsylvania, 97.6%
- New York University, 97.3%
- Columbia University, 96.1%
- Harvard University, 95.8%
- Washington University in St. Louis, 95.5%