Law School Dean Blames Lazy Students For Terrible Bar Passage Rate

Which law school's bar passage rate has taken a turn for the worse?

Being Dean of Charlotte School of Law cannot be an easy job. Alumni are plastering the neighborhood with complaints about the school, 1Ls walk like lambs to a slaughter, they have to offer “refunds” to students that don’t pass the bar, and now terrible news about your school’s 2015 bar passage rate.

A tipster sent us an email sent by Charlotte School of Law Dean Jay Conison to the student body, noting a precipitous drop — 20% below the statewide average — in the bar passage rate for Charlotte Law first-time test takers.

We are, however, disappointed in the overall pass rate for Charlotte graduates. Our first-time takers passed at a rate of 47.1%, as compared to a state rate of 67.1%. Repeat takers passed at a rate of 23.7%, as compared to the overall rate of 24.3%.

That’s… not good. Even for those who predicted a decline in the 2015 bar passage rates, that’s got to be a shock. (For context, Charlotte Law’s first-time takers’ bar passage rate for 2014 was 55.98%)

My guess is that the dean does not subscribe to NCBE head Erica Moeser’s theory that a good deal of these students never should have gone to law school in the first place. That’d mean less tuition dollars in Infilaw’s coffers. So, that probably means it is time to spread around some blame:

First, some graduates took a bar preparation course offered by another vendor (Themis), rather than BEST [Charlotte Law’s Bar Exam Strategies and Tactics], and their pass rate was very low (preliminary data reflect that it was only 15.4%).

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When in doubt, blame someone else! For what it is worth, the dean’s “preliminary data” for students that took Themis is well off the historical bar passage rate for Themis.

But that doesn’t account for the entirety of the failures. What else can shoulder the blame? Lazy students.

Second, a number of our July bar takers (including some who had performed well in law school) did not do the work. The BEST program centers on a great deal of practice and mock bars, workshops, and counseling. The educational approach is based on learning by testing and doing—the most effective way to reinforce knowledge and competencies. Our data show that unless one participates fully and does the work, you cannot receive the benefits and your chance of success goes way down. For example, students who participated in at least 7 mock bar review workshops and completed at least 750 mock bar practice questions passed at an 84% rate.

There you go, that should be sufficient for students to truly believe that they are the special snowflakes that really should be in law school.

And, based on one message to the Charlotte Law Students Facebook page, the blame game is working:

I’m sorry so many did not pass but literally everyone I know that did the work passed. I am tired of being the laughing stock. Your decisions affect others and the reputation that you build for our school hurts the current and former graduates. I don’t want to dump on those that failed. I just want our school to get a good reputation.

Guess there’ll be a lot of those refunds.

Read the dean’s full letter on the next page.

Earlier: Disgruntled Grad Spreads Insane Tale Of Law School Debt Woes — Via Hundreds Of Windshield Flyers
Tweets From TTT 1Ls Are The Saddest Thing You’ll Read Today
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