Bar Exams, Law Schools

Florida Law Grads Weathered The Storm When It Came To The Bar Exam

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

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The results from Florida’s administration of the July 2017 bar exam are out, and while they’re nowhere near as bad as the destruction that was caused by Hurricane Irma, they’re not exactly pretty.

First, the good news: Three law schools were able to break the 80-percent mark as far as passage is concerned, and one of those schools has clinched the top passage rate on the July exam for the fourth year in a row. Next, the bad news: Three law schools posted passage rates in the 50-percent range, and one law school’s passage rate fell below 50 percent. The state’s overall passage rate for first-time takers was 71.3 percent, up 3.1 percentage points since the July 2016 administration of the exam.

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

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

Congratulations to Florida International University College of Law on its recent string of victories! With an 87.8 percent passage rate, the law school has secured itself a spot in Florida history for consistently coming out on top during a time of despair for the legal community in the state.

Hovering around or below a 50 percent passage rate, law schools like Barry (58.9 percent), Florida A&M (51.3 percent), Ave Maria (51.3 percent), and Florida Coastal (47.7 percent) seem to have put forth some less-than-inspired performances. Perhaps deans at these law schools ought to consult with FIU Law; after all, former FIU dean (and current Labor Secretary) Alex Acosta once said that the 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 still seem to be working out well.

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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. This spring, we spoke to Michelle Gavagni, the executive director of the Florida Board of Bar Examiners, who 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 July 2017 exam was 64.2 percent. Although more recent data is not yet available, Cooley Law’s combined passage rate for first-time takers for the February and July 2015 administrations of the Florida bar exam was — a solid 38.95 percent. Ooof…

Congratulations to you if you were able to pass the bar exam in Florida this summer. If you didn’t pass, don’t despair. Many very successful people have failed the bar exam (see our list of famous bar exam failures). Focus on February and develop a plan for passing. Believe in yourselves, because you can do it!

FIU is No. 1 on Bar Exam Pass Rate [Daily Business Review]

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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