Law School Celebrates Worst Bar Exam Results In Nearly 10 Years

Yikes...

The saddest celebration ever?

The saddest celebration ever?

Last week, in a surprising twist of fate, we learned that the national mean score on the July 2016 administration of the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) had inched up higher than it had been in recent years. In July 2015, at 139.9, the national MBE mean was the lowest it had been in nearly three decades. This summer, the national mean MBE score is 140.3, four tenths of a point higher.

But does that mean that law students, on the whole, passed the exam in greater percentages? Absolutely not, as the results from North Carolina seem to suggest.

North Carolina’s bar exam results are usually shrouded in secrecy. The state does not publicly publish the number of people who have taken its exam, much less its overall passage rates, but thanks to one law school’s emails to students, we’ve been able to gather some of that information. For example, we know that in July 2015, the overall passage rate for first-time takers in the state was 67.1 percent, and that in July 2016, the overall passage rate for first-time takers in the state was 65.9 percent.

Last summer, for-profit InfiLaw institution Charlotte School of Law, the very law school whose emails we rely upon for statistics on the North Carolina bar exam, displayed test results that were so subpar — only 47.1 percent of the school’s first-time takers passed — that Dean Jay Conison blamed Charlotte’s graduates for “not do[ing] the work” needed to pass the exam. This summer, an even smaller percentage of graduates from Charlotte Law passed the exam — 45.24 percent — but Dean Conison seems to be relatively thrilled about the results. Why on earth is he so pleased? We’ll allow him to explain himself.

Here’s an excerpt from an email Dean Conison sent to all students late last month:

Our 45.24% first-time pass rate, although not at the levels we wish, marks an increase of 11% from the February 2016 pass rate, and signals that our improvements are having an impact. Our ultimate bar pass rate over the past five years has been approximately 78%, and we expect many more of our graduates to pass the North Carolina bar examination in coming administrations.

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According Charlotte Law, North Carolina’s pass rate in February 2016 was just 51.1 percent, and now we know that approximately 34.7 percent of the school’s graduates passed the February 2016 bar examination. We don’t how many Charlotte Law graduates took the February 2016 test, nor do we know how many of them took the July 2016 test, so Dean Conison’s talk of the school’s “improvements … having an impact” is a bit like comparing rotten apples to spoiled oranges. For the time being, here are some real statistics to examine: the percentage of Charlotte Law graduates who passed the bar exam after the school began to lower its admissions requirements in 2010. Take a look, courtesy of Charlotte Law’s own website (most recent results included by ATL):

Exam Date First Time Bar Passage Rate State Average Rate
July 2009 67.3% 80.63%
Feb. 2010 73.3% 68.86%
July 2010 87.0% 79.8%
Feb. 2011 75.0% 72.3%
July 2011 78.79% 82.19%
Feb. 2012 53.13% 60.24%
July 2012 68.22% 78.76%
Feb. 2013 69.8% 62.4%
July 2013 57.8% 71.01%
Feb. 2014 60.0% 64.15%
July 2014 56.0% 70.6%
Feb. 2015 40.5% 54.5%
July 2015 47.1% 67.1%
Feb. 2016 34.7% 51.1%
July 2016 45.24% 65.90%

Congratulations, Charlotte School of Law, because the results from the July 2016 administration of the bar exam are your worst in nearly a decade. It’s time to party like you’ve got up to six figures of nondischargeable loan debt and a 26.3 percent chance of working in a full-time, long-term job as a lawyer! Talk about a job well done.

At the conclusion of his email, Dean Conison says the school will be “carefully analyzing the data in order to make further improvements for February 2017 and beyond,” and “will continue to share with you our plans to improve bar outcomes and provide strong value to our students.” With all due respect, it looks like the best way for Charlotte Law to further improve its bar outcomes and provide strong value to its students is to raise its admissions requirements as opposed to merely accepting federal loan dollars to fill seats that would otherwise be empty. Better luck next time, Charlotte Law!

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While the administration at Charlotte Law may not be doing any favors for its students and graduates, it is doing a service for those at other North Carolina law schools who took the state’s bar exam. Dean Conison provided the school-by-school breakdown of bar exam results for all other law schools in the state, which by comparison make the Charlotte School of Law’s results look even more depressing.

Which North Carolina law school did the best on the state’s exam in July 2016? Flip to the next page to see Dean Conison’s full letter to students, as well as the first-time bar exam passage rates for the following law schools: Elon, North Carolina Central University, Campbell, University of North Carolina, Wake Forest, and Duke.


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.