I cannot speak for the other Michigan law school deans, but for myself I cannot accept that the 2012 results validly assessed our graduates. In short, these results are not for real.
— Don LeDuc, president and dean of Thomas M. Cooley Law School, commenting on his school’s abysmal results on the July 2012 administration of the Michigan bar examination.
(If you recall, we previously discussed this summer’s Michigan bar exam results, but what other amusing things does Dean LeDuc have to say about them?)
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Here are Cooley Law’s passage rates for the July administration of the Michigan exam over the past five years:
And here’s some sage advice from the dean, given the overall decline in results for Michigan schools:
Given these results, each law school should review its efforts to improve its bar results, but it is clear from this data that the main problem lies with the examination itself and not with the law schools. Cooley will certainly review our admission, teaching, grading, and bar preparation efforts, including finding ways to increase the efforts of our students and graduates to prepare for the examination.
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The problem might lie with the exam itself, but Cooley grads weren’t exactly hitting it out of the park in the first place. That said, Cooley will continue to strive to make sure that its graduates are at least minimally competent, because even a 78 percent passage rate is more respectable than a 51 percent passage rate.
Are the Bar Results for Real? [Thomas M. Cooley Law School]
Earlier: Test Takers Tank On The July 2012 Michigan Bar Exam