As we mentioned earlier today, “it’s not always the best law schools whose grads perform the best on the bar exam.” Case in point, one Florida law school has performed the best on the state’s exam for the past three administrations of the exam, beating out higher-ranked law schools in the state like the University of Florida, Florida State, and Miami. Congratulations to the up-and-coming Florida International University College of Law on its recent string of victories!
Here’s a summary on how well FIU Law’s grads have done, from a school press release:
First among Florida’s 11 law schools on the July 2016 bar examination, FIU College of Law graduates exceeded the statewide average bar passage rate of 68.2 percent by almost 20 percentage points. This follows the state-leading 84.6 percent passage rate on the February 2016 exam, and 89 percent pass rate on the July 2015 bar exam. All three rates have been the highest in Florida.
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Granted, FIU Law’s celebrations come during a time of relative despair for the state of Florida. The state’s bar exam passage rate is now at its lowest point in the past five years, with only 68.2 percent of test-takers passing the July 2016 administration of the exam. The overall passage rate has plummeted by 12 percentage points since the July 2011 exam. That said, here are the results for all Florida law schools for the July 2016 exam:
Hovering around or below a 50 percent passage rate, law schools like Florida A&M (52.9 percent), Florida Coastal (51.9 percent), Barry (49.0 percent), and St. Thomas (45.5 percent) seem to have put forth some rather pathetic performances. Perhaps deans at these law schools ought to consult with FIU Law; after all, Dean Alex Acosta has said that his school’s “bar exam preparation and Academic Excellence Program are unique in Florida and provide unparalleled opportunities for students to become better students and better lawyers” — and those programs seem to be working out quite well.
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 are we. To our knowledge, Cooley has never been listed on the state’s bar exam results list, even though its inaugural class graduated in 2015. Do graduates of this law school even bother taking the bar exam? We plan to reach out to the law school and the Florida Bar, but if you know what’s going on, let us know.
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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.
Earlier: Florida Bar Results Are In… And Most Of The Law Schools Did Terribly
Guess Which Law School Dominated The Florida Bar Exam? It’s Not Who You’d Expect…
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.