Just when we thought that bar exam performance couldn’t get any worse, lo and behold, the national mean MBE scaled score from the July 2018 has reared its ugly head. Last year, the national mean MBE scaled score from the July bar exam was 141.7. This year, that same score is 139.5, a 34-year low for the smallest group of examinees to take the July MBE since 2001. The last time the score was this around this low (139.2) was in 1984.
Professor Derek Muller of Pepperdine University School of Law has created a chart over at Excess of Democracy so that the MBE’s death drop can be better visualized. This chart includes July 2018’s less-than impressive numbers:
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(Chart via Prof. Derek Muller / Excess of Democracy)
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“Performance on the written portion of the bar exam tracks MBE performance,” said National Conference of Bar Examiners President Judith Gundersen. “Pass rates will be lower in most jurisdictions. Already some jurisdictions have completed grading and have released their results. There have been some upticks, but generally, lower performance and bar passage is expected.” …
“Like everyone else, we were hoping that the rebounding of scores in the 2016 and 2017 July results would continue, but they are what would be expected given the number of applicants and LSAT 25th percentile means of the 2015 entering class,” Gundersen said.
Things may have gotten “better” for law schools this application cycle, but these problematic results are likely due to law schools’ past acceptance of students with poor entering qualifications. Things will only get worse until this cycle ends. Law school graduates unable to pass the bar exam to become lawyers will be stuck with upwards of six figures of loan debt, so that law schools are able to rejoice that they’ve been able to keep the lights on for one more year. If law school administrators are trying to run the legal profession into the ground, then this is a surefire way to do so.
It’s anyone’s guess as to what will happen with the upcoming winter exam, but based on the results from July, it might not be very good. We hope we’re wrong.
July 2018 Average MBE Scores Decrease [National Conference of Bar Examiners]
July 2018 Multistate Bar Exam Scores Collapse To 34-Year Low [TaxProf Blog]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked 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.