San Joaquin posts best bar exam results among non-ABA schools

Graduates of San Joaquin College of Law performed better than their peers from other state-accredited law schools on the July bar exam, with 59 percent of first-time takers passing.

San Joaquin’s first-time taker success rate also bested seven of the state’s 21 American Bar Association-accredited schools and was much improved from the school’s 31 percent rate on the July 2016 test. The Fresno County-based school had 34 first-time takers on the most recent exam, far fewer than most ABA institutions.

One-third of first-time takers from state-accredited schools passed the July exam, which was the first two-day, rather than three-day, test.

The State Bar provided law schools with data about how institutions with 11 or more test takers performed, so information on the individual success rates for all non-ABA schools was not included.

Janice Pearson, dean of San Joaquin College of Law, said Tuesday she was thrilled with her school’s bar results.

She attributed the success in part to a bar review program for graduates that placed a strong emphasis on the multiple-choice section of the exam. That section became worth 50 percent of an exam-taker’s final score rather than 35 percent as in previous years.

The school started a “legal methods” first-year class four years ago, which Pearson said has helped students at the four-year school develop their analytical reasoning skills early on. The dean also said the switch to a shorter exam lessened the “exhaustion factor” for test-takers.

“We are very pleased, because not only did we do better than seven of the ABA schools, we were also close to two others,” Pearson said.

The average first-time pass rate for the ABA schools in California was 70 percent, while the average first-time success rate for the three categories of unaccredited schools ranged from 25 to 29 percent, according to the bar.

State-accredited law schools are required to maintain a 40 percent bar passage rate for the preceding five-year period.

Here are the first-time exam-taker passage rates on the July exam for state-accredited schools for which data from the bar was available:

• San Joaquin College of Law, 59 percent

• Lincoln Law School of Sacramento, 47 percent

• Cal Northern School of Law, 45 percent

• Glendale University College of Law, 41 percent

• Empire College School of Law, 31 percent

• John F. Kennedy University School of Law, 26 percent

• University of West Los Angeles School of Law — San Fernando Valley campus, 24 percent

• Trinity Law School, 22 percent

• Pacific Coast University School of Law, 20 percent

Here are the first-time taker passage rates on the July exam for unaccredited schools in the state for which data was available:

• Northwestern California University School of Law, 27 percent

• Concord Law School at Kaplan University, 22 percent