Bar Exams, Law Schools

As Bar Exam Scores Continue To Plummet, Early Results Reveal Worst Performance In Decades

What do these terrible test scores say about the current state of legal education?

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Last year, when recent law school graduates posted underwhelming results on the July administration of the bar exam, they blamed ExamSoft’s malfunctioning software for all of their problems. Erica Moeser, the president and CEO of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, didn’t care about the tech glitch; when it came to the nationwide drop in MBE scores, she declared that July 2014’s bar takers were simply “less able” than their predecessors. As could have been expected, law school graduates and law school deans were enraged. According to them, the problem wasn’t the test-takers, it was the test itself.

This year, the results from the July 2015 administration of the bar exam are even worse, and our nation’s would-be lawyers have no one to blame but themselves — and perhaps their law schools, for admitting them in the first place. Bloomberg Business has the scoop:

The average score on the multiple-choice portion of the July test fell 1.6 points from the previous year, reaching its lowest level since 1988, according to data provided to Bloomberg by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The mean score on this summer’s exam was 139.9, down from 141.5 in July 2014.

“It was not unexpected,” says Erica Moeser, the president of the NCBE, which creates the multiple choice part of the test. “We are in a period where we can expect to see some decline, until the market for going to law school improves.”

Law schools have been admitting students with lower qualifications who “may encounter difficulty” when taking the bar, Moeser says.

As we’ve discussed ad nauseam, many law schools have lowered their admissions standards to combat the nationwide decline in applicants and fill their seats, but now administrators are shocked their less-qualified graduates are unable to pass the bar exam. Just how bad has the bar exam carnage been so far? Professor Derek Muller of Pepperdine Law has been keeping track at Excess of Democracy, and the results are not pretty.

Change in overall bar pass rate, July 2014 over July 2015

Iowa, +5 points (July 2014: 81%; July 2015: 86%)

Kansas, -3 points (July 2014: 79%; July 2015: 76%)

Mississippi, -27 points (July 2014: 78%; July 2015: 51%)

Missouri, -1 point (July 2014: 85%; July 2015: 84%)

Montana, -2 points (July 2014: 64%; July 2015: 62%)

New Mexico, -12 points (July 2014: 84%; July 2015: 72%)

North Carolina, -4 points** (July 2014: 71%; July 2015: 67%)

North Dakota, +6 points (July 2014: 63%; July 2015: 69%)

Oklahoma, -11 points (July 2014: 79%; July 2015: 68%)

Washington, -1 point (July 2014: 77%; July 2015: 76%)

West Virginia, -5 points (July 2014: 74%; July 2015: 69%)

Wisconsin, -10 points*** (July 2014: 75%; July 2015: 65%)

**denotes first-time test-takers, not overall rate
***source via comments

What do these terrible test scores say about the current state of legal education? Because a majority of states haven’t revealed their scores yet, it may be too early to say anything conclusive. For what it’s worth, some are clamoring on about how the test is now harder due to the inclusion of Civil Procedure on the MBE, but Moeser says its a non-issue, as bar examinees did about as poorly on those questions as they did on all the rest.

According to Professor Muller, “There isn’t a lot that schools can do. You can only train students so far and so much, a lot depends on ability.” That being said, there seems to be an obvious solution to the problem, but we doubt it’s one that law schools will take. Law schools must accept the fact that in order to produce graduates who will be able to pass the bar exam, they must heighten their admissions standards. In doing so, their classes will be small — very small — and their coffers won’t be as full as they used to be. Some law schools will have to close for this to happen, and it’ll be a traumatic experience for all involved.

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Until law schools realize they’re doing a disservice to everyone — their students, their graduates, and their graduates’ future clients — things will only continue to get worse.

Bar Exam Scores Drop to Their Lowest Point in Decades [Bloomberg Business]
July 2015 bar exam results again show declining pass rates almost everywhere: outliers, or a sign of more carnage? [Excess of Democracy]

Earlier: Who Is To Blame For The Dumbing Of The Legal Profession?

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