Bar Exams, Law Schools

Bar Exam Passage Rates Soar Thanks To Law School's Closure

Holy crap! This is crazy.

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‘Why can’t we pass the bar exam?’

It’s that time of year again. Amid a multitude of natural disasters that have wreaked (or are about to wreak) havoc across the country, bar exam results have slowly but surely started to roll out for those who sat for the exam just a few months ago. While some recent law school graduates have been frantically preparing themselves for wild fires and hurricanes, others have been frantically refreshing websites and running to their mailboxes to see if they were able to pass the July 2017 bar exam. What did the first round of results bring for recent law school graduates?

Late last month, North Carolina finished scoring its bar exam and sent off the results to would-be lawyers who were praying for a passing score. Earlier this week, those results were unleashed to the public. As Above the Law readers know, the state’s results are typically shrouded in secrecy. North Carolina usually doesn’t publicly publish the number of people who have taken its exam, much less its overall passage rates. This year is different. This year, we didn’t have to rely upon a law school’s email to students about the results in order to gather the pertinent information on passage rates. This year, we couldn’t rely upon a law school’s email to students about the results, because the law school that usually sends out such emails — Charlotte School of Law — is now closed.

This year, the results of most recent North Carolina bar exam were not only obtained and published by state law schools humbling bragging about their graduates’ success rates, but they were also obtained and published by the Triangle Business Journal. The data has revealed that the state’s overall passage rate is the highest that it’s been in the past three years. Holy crap…

We now know that the July 2017 passage rate for first-time takers was 72.20 percent, while the overall passage rate was 61.75 percent. In July 2016, the average pass rate for first-time takers was 65.9 percent, which means there was a whopping 6.3 percentage point increase this year for first-time takers. In July 2017, the passage rate for first-time takers from North Carolina law schools was 73.80 percent, while the same rate July 2016 was 66.82 percent. For that in-state measure, we’re looking at an increased passage rate of 6.98 percentage points. What could have happened to cause such a huge uptick in first-time passers? The mass departure of students from Charlotte Law prior to the school’s closure, that’s what. Check out this data:

Exam Date Overall NC Bar Exam Passage Rate
July 2011 74 percent
July 2012 73 percent
July 2013 63 percent
July 2014 62 percent
July 2015 58 percent
July 2016 56.5 percent
July 2017 61.75 percent

Here are the overall passage rates from North Carolina’s seven law schools, including both first time and repeat test takers:

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  • Wake Forest University School of Law: 86.30 percent
  • Duke University School of Law: 84.21 percent
  • Campbell Law School: 81.34 percent
  • UNC School of Law: 80.58 percent
  • N.C. Central University School of Law: 53.74 percent
  • Elon University School of Law: 44.26 percent
  • Charlotte School of Law: 34.06 percent

Here are the first-time passage rates from North Carolina’s seven law schools:

  • Wake Forest University School of Law: 89.71 percent
  • Duke University School of Law: 87.50 percent
  • UNC School of Law: 85.48 percent
  • Campbell Law School: 83.33 percent
  • N.C. Central University School of Law: 56.73 percent
  • Elon University School of Law: 53.49 percent
  • Charlotte School of Law: 45.45 percent (up slightly from last July’s 45.24%)

With all of that data, just imagine how much higher the state’s bar exam passage rates could have been if even fewer graduates from Charlotte (or Elon) had sat for the July 2017 test. Law schools, law students, and prospective law students across the country ought to take notice of the cause and effect of what happens to bar exam results when students with less-than-stellar admissions criteria sit for the exam. The solution to this problem isn’t decreasing the bar exam cut rate to increase the number of those who are able to pass the test. The solution is to increase admissions standards and/or specialized tutoring for those who will be able to pass the test in the first place. Law schools MUST stop scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to admitting students. Admission standards MUST be raised to put a stop to subpar performance on the bar exam.

Law students: don’t allow yourselves to be sold a six-figure pipe dream. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we will repeat this statement for the umpteenth time: “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.” Do your jobs. End this misery once and for all.

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Passing the bar: How N.C. law schools stacked up in July [Triangle Business Journal]
Wake Forest School of Law graduates have highest bar passage rate among North Carolina law schools [Wake Forest Law]
Campbell Law places third overall on July 2017 N.C. Bar Exam [Campbell Law]

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please 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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