Bar Exams, Law Schools

Oregon Finds Out Easiest Way To Improve Bar Exam Passage Rate Is To Lower Its Cut Score

Congrats... I guess.

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Screw hard work. That’s for chumps.

Say, for example, you were a state that was concerned about declining bar passage rates. Why do the hard work of assessing the quality of in-state legal education or declining law school admission standards? You can just lower the passing score on the bar exam, then — presto change-o — bar passage rate problems solved.

That’s what Oregon did. The state Board of Bar Examiners (BBX) decided the new cut score for bar passage should be 274, down from 284, and they anticipated that move would result in a a passage rate of about 68 percent, up from last year’s 58 percent. They, um, overshot the mark.

The overall passage rate for the July 2017 bar exam is a whopping 79 percent. That’d be impressive if it weren’t artificially created. (Remember that 10 years ago in July 2007, 74 percent of applicants passed the bar exam with the higher cut score.)

Bill Harbaugh, a University of Oregon faculty member and the “open-records king of Eugene,” explains on his blog, UOMatters, that this isn’t good news for everyone:

Normally about 260 people pass the July Oregon Bar exam. This spring the Oregon Supreme Court dumbed down the pass score and made some other changes, and 360 people passed. Obviously this is good news for the 100 students who otherwise wouldn’t be licensed to practice law, and good news for the Oregon Bar, which collects an annual $470 from each. It’s bad news for those 260 students who would have passed the older, harder exam, and who now have to try and find a job in an even more flooded job market.

At least the law schools deans in Oregon didn’t get their way — they’d actually advocated for an even lower cut score (266).

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But it’s hard to deny the benefits to the soon-to-be-esquires who actually get to enter their chosen profession, rather than sit on the sidelines as they wait for the February exam. So, congrats to the passers. But remember: this hasn’t fixed anything in legal education.

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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