Some blame law schools, students for poor bar results

Soon after the State Bar announced the success rate on the February bar exam plummeted to a record-low 27.3 percent, some law school deans pointed to the stringent passing standard as a major culprit.

But other legal education observers say the schools, not the nation’s second-highest cut score, bear the bulk of the responsibility for the decline in performance.

They highlighted that law schools in recent years have accepted students with poorer credentials who are less likely to excel on the bar.

“I think this result is very much attributable to the lower aptitude of the students taking this test,” said David Frakt, a former Western State College of Law professor who blogs about legal education for The Faculty Lounge.

Graduates from American Bar Association-accredited schools who took the February exam likely started classes in the fall of 2014 and retook the bar after failing last July’s test. Repeat takers from in-state ABA institutions saw their success rate dip from 46 percent last February to 31 percent this year.

Between 2008 and 2014, 17 of 21 ABA-accredited schools in California saw the 25th percentile LSAT score for their incoming classes decline. LSAT scores have been shown to be predictive of bar exam performance.

“I would suggest the declining results have little do with the exam, as we are testing the same subjects and have had the same standard for a long time,” said Karen M. Goodman, a member of California’s Committee of Bar Examiners, referencing a cut score that has been in place for more than 30 years.

Goodman noted that the bar last year had sought to study how the change in the law school student population has affected bar exam results, but encountered resistance from deans.

The deans raised concerns about running afoul of student privacy laws by providing the requested academic information, prompting the Legislature to pass a law designed to alleviate those concerns.

The study is now slated to be completed this fall due to the delay in receipt of data, said bar spokeswoman Rebecca Farmer. She said 11 law schools are participating in the study.

In an October letter to bar leaders about its decision to maintain the passing standard, the state Supreme Court encouraged the bar and law schools to collaborate to examine “whether student metrics, law school curricula, and teaching techniques and other factors might account for the recent decline in bar exam pass rates.”

“If something comes in that convinces us the passing score should change, then we will give fair consideration to those results,” said Erika Hiramatsu, chair of the Committee of Bar Examiners. “So far there hasn’t been anything to show us it needs to change.”

Kyle McEntee, executive director of advocacy group Law School Transparency, has frequently criticized law schools nationwide for accepting less-qualified students. He said the institutions have also not done enough to prepare such students for bar success.

“They have had years now of working with students of higher risk, and it doesn’t appear they have figured out how to maximize their chances on the bar,” McEntee said.

He and Frakt said they believe California’s passing standard should be lowered to align more with other states. But they said law school leaders in the state should have been even more reluctant to accept students with weaker incoming credentials given the current cut score.

“I’m not that sympathetic to the law school deans because they knew how tough the California bar exam was when they admitted these students,” Frakt said.