Bar Exams, Law Schools

Uniform Bar Exam Finally Brings Success For Law Grads After Years Of Subpar Pass Rates

Which state's would-be lawyers have seen a change of fortune?

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As we noted last year, many jurisdictions have adopted the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) in the past few years in the hopes of making law licenses more portable across state lines and giving more law school graduates the ability to pass the test in light of plummeting passage rates.

Some states had better success with the UBE than others. New York’s test results, for example, seem to have been normalized after several administrations of the UBE. New Mexico, on the other hand, had a really rough go of things after its first few administrations of the UBE, with its passage rate falling from 80 percent to 69 percent on the February 2016 exam and from 72 percent to 64 percent on the July 2016 exam.

This summer’s results, however, brought about radical change for New Mexico, with passage rates that soared higher than the state had seen in years. It seems like those who want to practice law in New Mexico have finally gotten the hang of the UBE. Here’s the good news for lawyers in the Land of Enchantment:

The New Mexico Board of Bar Examiners (NMBBE) today released the results of the July 2017 New Mexico bar exam. The passage rate for the exam was 83%, which is higher than the pass rates from recent administrations and consistent with bar exam pass rates pre-2014. The first-time pass rate was 88%. Of the 197 examinees in July 2017, 163 achieved a passing score.

New Mexico’s overall passage rate increased by 19 percentage points, while its first-time passage rate increased by 18 percentage points. Last summer, after watching New Mexico Law’s first-time passage rate drop by 13 percentage points (from 81 percent in July 2015 to 68 percent on July 2016) — the worst UNM Law graduates had performed on the bar exam since July 2008 — co-deans Sergio Pareja and Alfred Mathewson pledged to boost the school’s first-time pass rate to 80 percent by 2018. With this kind of improvement in the state’s overall and first-time passage rates, it’s seems likely that the school’s alumni may have already come close to that goal or exceeded it. As soon as the University of New Mexico School of Law releases this information, we will update this post.

UPDATE (4:30 p.m.): We just heard some really great news from Dean Pareja:

Our school’s first-time passage rate on the July 2017 exam was 91%, which greatly exceeds our stated goal of getting up to 80% by 2018. We are very pleased with the hard work of our faculty, staff, and students.

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Wow, New Mexico Law’s passage rate for first-time bar exam takers increased by 23 percentage points over the course of just one year. Excellent work!

Congratulations to you if you were able to pass the bar exam in New Mexico 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!

Examination Results [New Mexico Board of Bar Examiners]

Earlier: Bar Exam Passage Rates Plummet After Adoption Of Uniform Bar Exam

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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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