Bar Exams, Law Schools

Most Law Schools Did Horrendously On This State's Bar Exam

At one law school, three out of every four graduates failed the test.

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sad lawyer bar exam helpAs we mentioned earlier today, the results from Florida’s administration of the February 2017 bar exam are out, and they are not pretty. In fact, the passage rate on Florida’s winter bar is now at its lowest point since the February 2009 exam (and possibly even earlier, but that is the final date for which scores are listed on the Florida Board of Bar Examiners website). The state’s overall passage rate for first-time takers was 57.7 percent, and some law schools posted passage rates that barely hovered around the 50 percent mark. One law school’s passage rate was far, far lower than that.

Which schools performed the best on the test, and which schools performed the worst?

Here are the results for all Florida law schools for the February 2017 exam:

Florida Bar Exam Feb 2017 Results

As you can see, Miami and Florida International blew away the competition, with passage rates of 80.6 percent and 78.9 percent, respectively. Congratulations to graduates of both law schools. On the flip side of the coin, hovering around or below a 50 percent passage rate are law schools like Barry (51.5 percent), Florida A&M (46.2 percent), Nova Southeastern (55 percent), St. Thomas (44.7 percent), and Stetson (51.3 percent). The school with the worst performance of all was Florida Coastal, which posted a 25 percent passage rate. Recall that its sister school, Charlotte Law, posted a 25 percent passage rate on the February 2017 administration of the North Carolina bar exam. Who knew two Infilaw schools could produce terrible twin passage rates?

You may be wondering why Cooley Law’s Tampa Bay campus is nowhere to be found on the list of Florida bar exam results. So were we. As we noted previously, Cooley has never been listed by name on the state’s bar exam results list, even though its inaugural class graduated in 2015. Today, we put in a call to the Florida Board of Bar Examiners and spoke with Executive Director Michelle Gavagni. She explained that Cooley Law’s results are lumped in with the results from non-Florida law schools, as it’s a campus of a law school that’s based in Michigan. The passage rate for all non-Florida law schools for the February 2017 exam was 41.3 percent. Although more recent data isn’t available, we found Cooley Law’s combined passage rate for the February and July 2015 administrations of the Florida bar exam — a solid 38.95 percent. Ouch.

Congratulations to all those who passed the Florida bar exam. For those who didn’t, don’t let it get you down too much — you’ve got a lot of company. Better luck next time.

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Which law schools had the highest bar passage rates? [Orlando Sentinel]

Earlier: MBE Scores For February Bar Exam Reach Historic, All-Time Low

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. She’d love to hear from you, so feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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