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What Does The Gap Between In-Person & Online Bar Exam Results Tell Us?

Probably not much.

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Online bar exam results have more or less tracked expectations. There’s always a little fluctuation, but it’s been difficult to say that the online exam produced results demonstrably worse than the usual licensing exam. That shouldn’t really surprise anyone because the bar exam is, by design, intended to produce stable results and when jurisdictions are handling scaling with a ragtag set of NCBE castoff questions, it’s reasonable to assume that things would play out mostly according to script.

But what about Texas?

The overall pass rate for Texas’ first-ever online bar exam was 60%, compared with nearly 77% in September, according to statistics released by the Texas Board of Law Examiners. The first-time pass rate in October was also lower: 71% compared with 82% in September. The overall pass rate for the July 2019 exam was nearly 69%.

That’s a hefty dip, but it’s also one that doesn’t provide much information.

Are in-person, NCBE-run exams better? That’s inevitably the takeaway the bar exam monopoly would like to push. But aside from the fact that these were different test questions graded by different people using different scales, the October exam also boasted more repeat test-takers among the October online crew, which generally depresses passage figures.

The only possible insight that I can discern is that Texas examiners scaling the test on their own were potentially less forgiving than other jurisdictions. Given the hostility bar examiners seem to have for any option other than in-person, NCBE exams, it wouldn’t be shocking for examiners to apply a harsher metric to the online results when they feel they administered a perfectly acceptable September exam. Even that probably didn’t happen, but as I said, that’s the only possible insight here.

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It’s an interesting outlier among the early results we’ve seen. As more and more states come in, we’ll get a better idea of how this test played out. But for now, don’t read anything too significant into these results.

Pass Rate Sinks for Texas’ First Online Bar Exam [Law.com]

Earlier: Veteran State Court Judge Rips Bar Exam, Says Test ‘Does Not Function To Protect The Public’
D.C. Bar Results Continue To Feed False ‘Everything Is Normal’ Narrative

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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