Bar Exams

What's Up with the Flori-duh February Bar Exam?

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The Florida Bar Exam results are out, and they’re not pretty for some of the top Flori-duh law schools. [FN1]

Law School Headlines asks “What happened on the February 2009 Florida Bar?” noting the abysmal performance by graduates of University of Florida, FSU, and University of Miami. Their passage rates dropped from percentages in the high 80s and 90s on the July exam to 64.9%, 65.0% and 61.1%, respectively. Here’s the press release [PDF].

Did exam takers spend too much time on the beach, and not enough time at BarBri classes?

A representative from the Florida Board of Bar Examiners wouldn’t comment on the problems the graduates of these schools had. She did note though that the rate of passage for first-time test takers is consistent with years past (around seventy percent), and that February exam takers (as opposed to July testers) are a “different group of people.” They tend to be non-traditional students, who didn’t do the whole “enroll in the fall, graduate in three years, take the bar exam in July…”-and-then-pass thing.

But FSU had the highest passage rate among Florida schools on last year’s February exam, as well the July 2007 and July 2006 exams. FSU College of Law Dean Donald Weidner told Tallahassee.com, “It’s disappointing and puzzling.”

It’s also unusual. See passage rates from previous years, after the jump.


Here are passage rates for past years, as sent to us by the Florida Board of Bar Examiners:

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  • University of Florida: February 2007 – 83.3%; February 2008 – 88.3%; February 2009 – 64.9%
  • Florida State University: February 2007 – 88.2%; February 2008 – 93.6%; February 2009 – 65.0%
  • University of Miami: February 2007 – 76.9% ; February 2008 – 78.9%; February 2009 – 61.1%

[FN1: Hat tip to Randazza at The Legal Satyricon for “Flori-duh,” a beat he covers with much regularity.]

FSU puzzled by state bar exam results; Florida, Miami passing rates also low [Tallahassee.com]

What happened on the February 2009 Florida Bar? [Law School Headlines]

Exam Stats [PDF] [Florida Board of Bar Examiners]

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