State Supreme Court Lowers Bar Exam Standards Due To Declining Pass Rates

Even the state's Board of Bar Examiners thought this was a bad idea.

failedFor the past two years, bar exam pass rates have plummeted, with several jurisdictions posting their worst pass rates in decades. What could have caused this problem to rear its ugly head?

Thanks to the recession, law school after law school lowered their admissions standards, allowing students who may never pass the exam to enroll. Now that several admissions cycles have come and gone, it seems that Erica Moeser, president of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, was correct when she stated that today’s test-takers are “less able” than their predecessors.

The solution here seems relatively simple. As we noted previously, “Law schools need to stop scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to admitting students to fill their otherwise empty seats. Admission standards must be raised to end this misery.” Rather than wait for law schools to get their acts together, one state’s Supreme Court has decided to act on their behalf. What unique judicial remedy did the court have to offer?

Before we get to that, we’ll note that the court in question is the Oklahoma Supreme Court, and its judges have sat and watched the state’s bar exam pass rates slump for years. In July 2012, the pass rate for the Oklahoma bar exam was 83 percent; in July 2013, the pass rate for the exam was 82 percent; in July 2014, the pass rate for the exam was 79 percent; and finally, in July 2015, the pass rate for the exam was 68 percent.

This is what the entering admissions data for all three of Oklahoma’s law schools looked like during the relevant time period (all images courtesy of Law School Transparency).

University of Oklahoma College of Law

U Oklahoma GPA LSAT

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University of Tulsa College of Law

Tulsa Law GPA LSAT

Oklahoma City University School of Law

Oklahoma City Law GPA LSAT

Amid the declining enrollment and loosened admissions criteria outlined above, the Oklahoma Supreme Court decided in a contested 5-4 decision that the proper thing to do in this situation would be to make it easier for law school graduates to pass the state’s exam. The majority’s decision defies all logic and reasoning, and Justice Steven Taylor led the charge against this course of action in his dissent, calling it a “mistake”:

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In a hearing before this Court on December 12, 2015, the Oklahoma Board of Bar Examiners (whose members are appointed by this Court) unanimously recommended that there be no change in the bar examination testing, composition, grading, or scaling. The Bar Examiners reported to this Court that our bar examination process is clearly in line with national standards.

The Deans of all three Oklahoma law schools were present at this hearing, and all three made comments to this Court concerning the bar examination. The consensus was that the Court should await further experience with future bar examinations before taking action, rather than react to the results of one bar examination.

The purpose of the bar examination is to screen applicants in such a way as to protect the public and to protect the reputation of the legal profession. The bar examination should not be easy. It should be a rigorous test of legal knowledge and ability. The fact that there was a greater failure rate on the most recent bar examination is not a reason to change the examination’s grading or scaling.

The action taken today by the majority is a mistake. I dissent.

This is most certainly not a viable solution. Bar exams should not be dumbed down to account for the intellect of the law school graduates taking them, and bar exam grading and scaling should not be made easier to accommodate the failings of law schools to properly cull their entering classes. We’ve said several times before and we’ll say it again because this time, it really bears repeating: “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.”

If anything, bar exams should continue to be administered just as they have been for the past few years so that the American Bar Association can see the damage it has done by neglecting to take action in a timely manner when it comes to the very law schools the accrediting organization is supposed to be closely monitoring.

This is the entirely wrong course of action, and we sincerely hope that no other state Supreme Courts are considering following in Oklahoma’s errant footsteps.