California First Year Law Students' Examination

Now that the July 2014 California Bar examination results for individual schools are out I've been focusing a little on the schools that are not accredited by the ABA (or the California Bar). The odds for many of those graduates are long.  And yet those who sit for the bar from that group of schools have already passed a significant hurdle.  Even before they can sit for the California Bar examination, students at schools that are not accredited by either the ABA or the California Bar have to pass the California Bar's "first year law students' exam." So that set me to wonder what that exam involves. Cribbing now from the California Bar memo describing the grading of the First Year Law Students' Examination:

The examination includes both essay and multiple-choice questions and is administered in one day. Four hours is allocated for completing the four-essay question portion of the examination and three hours for one hundred multiple-choice questions.  The subjects covered in this examination are: Contracts, Criminal Law, and Torts. An answer based upon legal theories and principles of general applicability is sufficient; detailed knowledge of California law is not required. The following provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code should be used where pertinent: a. All of Article l; b. All of Article 2.

For the June 2014 administration of the First Year Law Students' Examination (FYLSE), the first time pass rate was 27%.  Here's something else I didn't realize -- that some ABA accredited schools require some students who have been disqualified for academic reasons to pass the FYLSE to gain re-admission.  That explains why some students from ABA accredited schools are taking the FYLSE.

The California Bar has old essay questions (and selected answers) on the FYLSE, from June 2014 going back to October 2009.  You might be interested, as I was, in seeing what they're asking.  

Unsurprisingly the subjects that the California bar tests on the FYLSE have an effect on what's taught in the first year.  Here is Concord Law School's explanation of the preparation for the FYLSE, along with some revealing data about how performance at Concord correlates with performance on the FYLSE.

Comments

[Anon123]

Thank you. What is also interesting is that distance learners have a higher pass rate that fixed site students at comparable schools. It may be that some students who could be admitted to ABA schools are choosing distance learning for its convenience.

[Al Brophy]

Pretty interesting to speculate about the differences in the student body between those groups, isn't it? The distance learning schools, like Concord, may be able to recruit students who aren't close to any bricks and mortar school (and who might very well have been able to gain admission to/afford to attend an ABA accredited school). Those students may also prefer the distance learning to correspondence courses. There's a lot to investigate about the students. I'd also add, though, that the pass rates vary widely across individual schools. For instance, California School of Law, a distance ed school, has a 65% pass rate for the FYLSE (N=20); Concord has a 21% pass rate (N=152); and Taft, a correspondence school, has an 11% pass rate (N=38).

[Sned]

Distance learning is not really suitable for law school. The Socratic method with a qualified professor guiding the discovery has proven itselfthe best way to learn the law.

Not only do bricks and mortars add value Rio students but they also add value to the communities that host the students.

[Anon123]

Adding value to the communities that host students comes at a cost. It is time to stop ignoring costs to student. Professors can still ask questions, and maybe Socratic method could use tweaking.