Bar Exams, Law Schools

Allowing Law Students To Fail The Bar Exam Is NOT A Good Way To 'Diversify' The Legal Profession

Giving them exorbitant debt sentences won't diversify the legal profession, either.

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unhappy black female lawyerGraduates who fail the bar exam cannot diversify the profession. Instead, these graduates suffer substantial personal and financial costs. Maintaining the accreditation of law schools with poor bar passage rates, on the contrary, is a counterproductive way to diversify the profession.

— Professor Deborah Jones Merritt of the Ohio State University School of Law, in response to objections that have been raised to the ABA’s proposed plan to tighten law school accreditation standards by requiring that 75% of a school’s graduates who sit for a bar exam pass the test within two years. Law school deans with larger populations of minority students have expressed concerns, saying the new standard could “jeopardize the existence of traditionally minority law schools and ultimately erase the profession’s modest gains in diversity over the last several decades.”

Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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