New results show that bar pass rates are continuing to fall, and the main reason seems to be students’ performance on the MBE (Multistate Bar Exam).
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 The National Conference of Bar Examiners. The mean score on this summer’s exam was 139.9, down from 141.5 in July 2014.
Of the states that have already published their July pass rates, the numbers are even worse than last year, when graduates performed historically badly.
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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.
Another possible reason for the lowering of MBE scores around the country is that test may be getting harder, as this was the first July exam to include questions about a seventh area of law, Federal Civil Procedure, which was previously untested on the MBE.
Moeser dismissed this idea however, stating that students did not do markedly worse on civil procedure questions than on any other topic the test probed.
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