Bar Exams, Law Schools

California's Bar Exam Results Still Suck: A Celebration Of Mediocrity

More than half of all test-takers failed the exam in its new two-day format.

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The results from the July 2017 administration of the California bar exam have been released, and we’re happy to say that for the first time in years, we finally have some “good” news to report. Almost half of all test-takers passed the exam this summer, and they likely have the new two-day exam format to thank for it. In most states, a passage rate this low would be disastrous, but for California, it’s miraculous.

While this summer’s increased passage rates put an end to years of nose-diving scores, this is a celebration of mediocrity. Remember that other states, like Mississippi, had passage rates that hovered around the 50 percent mark, and they were torn to shreds.

Please note the important UPDATE below.

According to a press release from the State Bar of California, the overall passage rate for the July 2017 exam was 49.6 percent, while the passage rate for first-time takers was 62 percent. The passage rate for retakers was a distressingly low 28 percent (which falls more in line with past results). For the sake of comparison, let’s take a look at the results for the last 10 summer administrations of the California bar exam.

Year Overall Pass Rate
July 2017 49.6 percent passed
July 2016 43.07 percent passed
July 2015 46.6 percent passed
July 2014 48.6 percent passed
July 2013 55.8 percent passed
July 2012 55.3 percent passed
July 2011 54.8 percent passed
July 2010 54.8 percent passed
July 2009 56.4 percent passed
July 2008 61.7 percent passed

Compared to last summer’s results — the lowest passage rate the state had seen in more than three decades, and third-lowest July passage rate since 1951 — an almost 50 percent passage rate is like a breath of fresh air. Once again, the mean scaled MBE score on the California exam (1432) was higher than the national average (1417). Just imagine what the results would have looked like if the justice of the California Supreme Court had decided to lower the score needed to pass the exam. (Or, in the alternative, just imagine what the results would have looked like if California law schools followed the advice of the state supreme court, raised their standards, and made improvements to law school admissions that would prevent so many graduates from failing the bar exam. That would’ve been something truly worthy of celebration.)

Recall that a record number of would-be lawyers signed up to take the California bar exam this summer (more than 10,000), and at last count, even with the applicants who’d been deemed ineligible to take the exam or who’d withdrawn their applications, about 9,837 had signed up for the exam — and yet only 8,545 completed it. After the February 2017 administration of the California bar exam, the State Bar changed the way it calculated the total percentage of those who passed. That percentage now includes only those who finished the exam, whereas in the past, that percentage included the total number of those who sat for the exam. It’s likely that the low overall passage rate that’s being celebrated would have been even lower had the State Bar not eliminated those who were unable to complete the test from the calculation.

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UPDATE: According to a representative from the State Bar, had they used the total number of people who actually sat for the exam (8,611) — like they did for the July 2016 exam — instead of the total number of those who completed the exam (8,545) in their final calculation for the July 2017 passage rate, this summer’s true overall passage rate would be 49.19 percent. This is still quite low.

Here are some additional statistics from this summer’s exam:

Yet again, graduates of ABA-accredited law schools displayed an obvious advantage over their peers who attended California-accredited or unaccredited law schools. Specifically, first-time takers from California’s ABA-accredited law schools improved their passage rate by 8 percentage points, up from 62 percent last summer. Those who went to law schools accredited only by California and took the exam for the first time were able to improve their success rate as well, with an increase of 12 percentage points, up from 21 percent last summer. We’re eager to see the passage rates for individual law schools, but fear that the State Bar of California will again refuse to publicly publish detailed exam results by school. If you are able to obtain this information, please send it to us here at Above the Law, either via email or text message at (646) 820-8477. We look forward to hearing from you.

When the results were released and Leah Wilson, Executive Director of the State Bar of California, noted that the overall passage rate had improved by about six percentage points, she said the State Bar “look[ed] forward to studying the factors that may have resulted in the increase.” Considering that almost nothing else changed, there was only one factor that really mattered here: the exam was transformed from three days of hell to two — and yet many other large states with two-day bar exams saw bar exam passage rates that were more than 20 percentage points higher than California’s exam.

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Something continues to remain wrong with the California bar exam, be it the exam itself, or the quality of law school graduates who are taking it. Law school deans will continue to rally for a lower passing score, the State Bar will continue to wonder why so few are able to pass the California bar exam, and all the while, entering admissions profiles at law schools across the state will continue to decrease until the ABA steps in and demands a remedy. For new lawyers, the legal profession in California is in trouble, but who will fix it? This is a question that must be answered, and fast.

Congratulations if you managed to pass the bar exam in California 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 try to develop a plan for passing, and someday, you’ll conquer the beast that is the California bar exam.

State Bar announces results of July 2017 California Bar Examination [State Bar of California]
California Bar Exam Ends 3-Year Slide, As Nearly Half Pass July Sitting [The Recorder]

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, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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