Estimating Law Schools' Cumulative Passage Rates on the California Bar Exam: Some Observations and Conjectures

Abstract

This article uses data reported by the State Bar of California to estimate, evaluate, and compare law schools’ cumulative passage rates on the California bar exam over the periods from 2007 to 2012 and 1997 to 2012. It also estimates law schools’ repeat taker passage rates, aggregate passage rates, and the average number of times their graduates who failed repeated the California bar exam over the same periods. Because of the limitations of the data, only tentative inferences can be drawn. Nonetheless, the results appear to have some important implications. First of all, some law schools with relatively low first-time taker passage rates on the California bar exam have cumulative passage rates close to those of the elite law schools; others, however, do not. Thus, cumulative passage rates may provide important information that is not captured by first-time taker passage rates. Second, the cumulative passage rates of Californian law schools generally appear to be higher than those of out-of-state law schools. This is no doubt in part because of a bias against the out-of-state schools in the way the cumulative passage rates are calculated, but it may also reflect some advantages to attending Californian law schools in preparing for the California bar exam. Finally, it appears that a small but significant percentage of the law graduates who wish to pass the California bar exam never do so. At some schools, the percentage may be less than two or three percent; at other schools it may be greater than fifteen percent. This is a matter that warrants further attention. Failing the bar exam on the first attempt is at best a stumble along the career path for any new law graduate. But a law graduate who wishes to practice law and is unable to pass the bar exam, even after repeated attempts, would probably consider her legal education a failure.