The July 2016 California Bar Examination results by law school were recently released. See the story here and more granular data here.
The overall performance of the the 21 (!) ABA law schools in California was dismal. The average first time pass rate for graduates of ABA accredited schools was just 62%.
Reviewing the results, I have a few observations:
1. Law school Deans in California are up in arms, with many complaining bitterly about how unreasonably difficult the California bar exam has become. I think they have a valid point. It appears to me that the California Bar is unjustifiably difficult to pass. Large numbers of students with very good LSAT scores and very good grades from very good law schools are failing the exam, and that is not necessary to protect consumers from incompetent attorneys. I believe the cut line should be set so at least 8-10% more takers pass the exam. This would still make California one of the more difficult bar exams in the country. By comparison, 83% of ABA law school grads passed the New York bar on their first attempt this July, a 21% higher rate. New York has a very similar range of law schools as California so the groups taking the bar exam had virtually identical aptitude. But tougher grading by the bar does not account for the significant drop in the California pass rate in recent years. Rather, the majority of the decrease in performance comes from the dramatically lowered admissions standards at California law schools which started in 2011, accelerated in 2012, and reached record lows in 2013, when most of the students who took the bar this summer entered law school (unfortunately, this trend continued in 2014 and 2015; no word yet on the entering class of 2016, but it is unlikely to be much better). The drop in performance on the bar was entirely predictable, and, in fact, I predicted a significant state-wide drop in California’s pass rate in a presentation I gave to the National Conference of Bar Examiners last spring because so many schools there had dramatically lowered their admissions standards in 2013.
2. LSAT scores matter – if you look at the pass rates, with a couple of notable exceptions, they track the selectivity of the school in terms of LSAT scores and UGPA of the entering class of 2013. In the chart below, I compare the LSAT profiles of the entering class of 2013 with the pass rate on the July 16 bar.
Law School |
July 16 FT Pass Rate |
Bar Pass Rank |
LSAT 25/50/75 |
LSAT Rank |
Stanford |
91 |
1 |
173/171/169 |
1 |
USC |
88 |
2 |
167/166/163 |
3 |
UC Berkeley |
84 |
3 |
169/167/163 |
2 |
UCLA |
82 |
4 |
169/167/162 |
4 |
UC Irvine |
81 |
5 |
166/164/162 |
5 |
Loyola |
72 |
Tie 6-7 |
161/159/156 |
Tie 7-8 |
UC Davis |
72 |
Tie 6-7 |
164/162/159 |
6 |
USD |
71 |
8 |
161/159/156 |
Tie 7-8 |
Pepperdine |
70 |
9 |
162/160/154 |
Tie 11-12 |
Santa Clara |
66 |
10 |
160/157/155 |
Tie 11-12 |
Cal Western |
61 |
Tie 11-12 |
154/151/148 |
16 |
McGeorge |
61 |
Tie 11-12 |
159/154/151 |
13 |
Chapman |
57 |
13 |
160/158/155 |
10 |
UC Hastings |
51 |
14 |
163/159/155 |
9 |
Western State |
42 |
15 |
152/150/148 |
17 |
Southwestern |
38 |
16 |
155/152/150 |
15 |
San Francisco |
36 |
17 |
158/153/151 |
14 |
Golden Gate |
31 |
Tie 18-20 |
153/150/147 |
18 |
La Verne |
31 |
Tie 18-20 |
152/147/146 |
19 |
T. Jefferson |
31 |
Tie 18-20 |
149/146/144 |
21 |
Whittier |
22 |
21 |
152/149/145 |
20 |
As you can see, bar pass rates closely track the ranking of the school by LSAT rank. In fact, 17 of 21 schools had a bar pass ranking within 2 places of their LSAT rank. Only one school noticeably outperformed its predictors, Cal Western, which outperformed four law schools with higher LSAT scores. Three law schools noticeably underperformed, UC Hastings, which was surpassed by five law schools with students with weaker entrance credentials, and San Francisco and Chapman which were outperformed by three schools with lower LSATs.
3. These results place a number of school in jeopardy of failing to meet the proposed new ABA standard of 75% of graduates passing the bar within two years of graduation. Law School Transparency estimates that a school will need above a 60% first time pass rate to be reasonably assured of hitting 75% within two years. Given the quality of their students, Chapman, at 57%, has a good shot of making it, if they can maintain their repeater passing rate of 52%. UC Hastings, at 51%, also could still make it. With the quality of students they admitted, they should be able to sustain their repeater pass rate of 48%. However, the math does not favor the bottom seven schools making it to 75% within 2 years, at least in California, assuming California maintains the current level of difficulty on the exam.
4. Schools in California should not admit large groups of students with LSATs at 147 or lower, and should be very selective with the 148s and 149s they admit, ensuring that they have above average grades. All five schools with a median LSAT of 150 or lower (meaning up to 49% could be below 150) had a pass rate at 42% or below.
5. Even if schools are admitting students who have a reasonable likelihood of success, schools that lower their admission standards have to change the way they teach and prepare students for the bar. In 2011, USF had an LSAT of 159/157/155. Their California bar pass rate in 2014 was 62%. When they dropped to 158/153/151 in 2013, they dropped to 36%. In 2011, Southwestern had an LSAT profile of 157/154/152. Their California bar pass rate in 2014 was 56%. When they dropped to 155/152/150 in 2013, their bar pass rate dropped to 38%. These results suggest to me that these schools failed to adjust for the lower aptitude of their students. Students below the median LSAT (between 151 and 152) must be made to work much harder and need a much more bar-focused curriculum. As the results at Chapman and UC Hastings demonstrate, even students with a 155 LSAT are at some risk of failure if they are not properly prepared, or do not perform to their full potential.
6. Once again, my LSAT score risk bands (reproduced below for your convenience) have been validated.
David Frakt’s LSAT Score Risk Bands
156-180 Minimal Risk
153-155 Low Risk
150-152 Modest Risk
147-149 High Risk
145-146 Very High Risk
120-144 Extreme Risk
7. Whittier is a total disaster. Some interesting facts: Whittier had more repeat takers than first-time takers (174 to 112) and its repeat takers passed at a dismal but still higher rate than its first time takers. Whittier’s pass rate could very easily get worse before it gets better, because their 2014 entering class credentials were significantly worse across the board than the 2013 group that just took the bar, at 150/146/143 compared to 152/149/145. Whittier should immediately be placed on probation for violating ABA Standard 301 and 501, as the ABA recently did with Charlotte Law. There was never a good faith basis to believe that students with that kind of aptitude had a reasonable likelihood of success on the bar exam, especially in California where the overwhelming majority of Whittier students have always taken the bar. To put things in perspective, Whittier matriculated 169 full time students in 2013, and 31 part time students in 2012 with similarly weak credentials. While a small handful may have transferred to other schools and passed the bar, if we assume the 112 first time takers and 25 passers from the July 2016 bar came from this cohort of 200, that means just 12.5% (or 1 in 8) of the students who started at Whittier completed their degree on time and passed the bar on their first attempt. Whittier must not be allowed to get away with this. Although there is some evidence that Whittier has recognized the error of its ways and is voluntarily attempting to turn things around, they should nevertheless be sanctioned for their egregious violations of the recent past. Incidentally, I also predicted Whittier’s horrific performance.
8. Thomas Jefferson should also be sanctioned immediately.
What about Golden Gate?
For some reason, David, you have steadfastly avoided, despite several prompts, to note that this may not be the first time Golden Gate has faced major bar passage issues.
Perhaps you do not know about this ancient history, i.e., 10 or so years ago. Perhaps the failure of prior efforts to remedy this issue at Golden Gate should be an even more telling signal that further, more strict action is required (i.e., a temporary improvement followed by falling back might suggest the unwillingness or inability to do what is necessary to improve, inviting scrutiny).
Posted by: anon | December 14, 2016 at 02:24 PM
"Students below the median LSAT (between 151 and 152) must be made to work much harder..."
How?
(This is a serious question. If there are methods known to be successful in encouraging at-risk students to put in greater bar exam preparation-related effort (beyond simply telling them "You need to work harder"), that would be useful information.)
Posted by: AnotherAnon | December 14, 2016 at 05:11 PM
Remember this oldie, but goodie you posted last year? "Back on December 4, Whittier Law Professor Sheldon Lyke wrote a post here on TFL which was sharply critical of Law School Transparency. In fact, he accused Law School Transparency of “instigating a dangerous national discourse” by suggesting that law schools were admitting students at very high risk of failing out of law school and/or failing the bar based on their poor LSAT scores and grades. In his post, Professor Lyke claimed that the “LSAT is at best a weak predictor of first-time bar passage” and “there is no evidence that law school graduates are not eventually passing the bar.” Both of these claims are nonsensical." http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2015/12/it-aint-getting-prettier-whittier.html
Seems you were right, again.
Also, this the the law school where a faculty member wore a BLM shirt to class. Maybe Whittier could use more teaching and less indoctrination.
Posted by: anon | December 14, 2016 at 05:16 PM
Sorry, anon, didn't mean to overlook Golden Gate. Golden Gate should also be put on probation.
Posted by: David Frakt | December 14, 2016 at 09:11 PM
Wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt to class doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when a law school claims to be helping underrepresented minorities by admitting students with little to no chance of success. My guess is that the minority pass rate at Whittier is well below 20%. That is shameful.
Posted by: David Frakt | December 14, 2016 at 09:14 PM
Another anon -
There are several ways to make students work harder. First, you have to give them more written assignments, more tests (I recommend mandatory midterms in first year courses), and more assessments with meaningful feedback. Second, make students take more rigorous bar-tested courses. Third, enforce tough rigorous grading standards with a mandatory curve or distribution. Fourth, to ensure that students keep working hard throughout their three years, consider instituting a program like Western State has, where students have to get a certain number of quality grades each year from a list of approved (mostly bar-tested) courses. See this post for a more detailed explanation. www.thefacultylounge.org/2014/08/improving-bar-passage-rates-for-at-risk-students-learning-from-western-state.html If students of modest ability wait until graduation to start studying hard for the bar it is too late. Another thing that schools can do is offer financial incentives to those who follow the full bar-review program, such as Bar-Bri. Promise to rebate a portion of their bar prep course if they complete a list of requirements. This can help ensure the graduates give themselves the best chance to pass the first time.
Posted by: David Frakt | December 14, 2016 at 09:22 PM
David
All good suggestions. However, what to do about the law school that is put on probation, institutes a bunch of measures to improve its pass rate, and then, after doing so, simply f...s off again, and is again, within ten years or so, right at the very bottom?
Wouldn't this suggests a faculty that is simply not able to perform to the level that you suggest? Add to that an arrogant unwillingness to budge an inch in terms of introspection and acknowledging the problem. Compound all of this with declining entrance credentials, as you note, to prop up a poorly performing faculty with demonstrably bad judgment and terrible outcomes (with, of course, some notable exceptions, as all law schools have a few good apples).
In the case of a prior probation, how should the ABA handle a repeat violator of the bar pass standard? It seems to this writer that the fact of prior remedial efforts resulting in a brief period of compliance, followed by slippage, within about ten years, right back to the very bottom of the barrel, is a strong indicator of a systemic problem with the faculty.
Add to that abysmal employment prospects for grads (again, right at the very bottomest bottom of the barrel), and what have you? A candidate for an ABA award for excellence in legal education?
In such a case, shouldn't some more telling sanction be applied, i.e., withdrawing accreditation with the right to reapply in five years?
Again, I ask you to specifically make yourself aware of the recent history in California regarding ABA compliance efforts and specific law schools that have been the subject of its "efforts."
Posted by: anon | December 14, 2016 at 09:41 PM
David,
You are correct. There are a lot of things that can be done to improve a law school's pass rate and help students become better lawyers. See E. Scott Fruehwald, How to Help Students from Disadvantaged Backgrounds Succeed in Law School, 1 Texas A & M Law Review 83 (2013). It will take a lot of work by both faculty and students, but it can be done. As you noted, it must begin in the first year. A third-year bar course is not enough.
Take a look at the success FIU has had with improving its bar pass rates.
Posted by: Scott Fruehwald | December 14, 2016 at 09:51 PM
With all of these billboards in and around Chicago advertising $49.00 traffic ticket defense, what is the point anymore?
Posted by: Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King | December 14, 2016 at 11:11 PM
Anon -
I have taken a look at Golden Gate and what they have been doing is appalling. Their bar pass rate in 2012 was 67.6%, within 4 points of the state average. In 2013 it was 55.7%, 15.4 below the state average. In 2014, it was 45.1% 20.9% below the state average. In 2015, according to their 2016 ABA 509 report which is posted on Golden Gate's website here:http://www.ggu.edu/media/law/documents/about/consumer-information/ggu-law-2016-aba-standard-509-report.pdf, they had a 38.9% pass rate, 24.8% below the state average. Now, in 2016 they are at 31% (or worse, as the Feb 2016 bar results were significantly worse than the summer results) and are likely more than 30% below the state average. From this data it is clear that Golden Gate has failed to meet the current ABA bar pass standard 301, since they have not been above 75 for any of the last five years, and they have been more than 15 points below the average first-time bar passage rates for graduates of ABA-approved law schools taking the bar examination in these same jurisdictions four years in a row. I am not sure why the ABA has not yet taken action, but it is probably because of the incredibly long time that a school is given to report its bar exam results to the ABA.
Looking at Golden Gate's prospects for the future, I think there is a good chance they will go out of business if they are put on probation. Certainly, there is no prospect of significant improvement in their bar pass results anytime soon. The class they admitted in 2014 is weaker that the 2013 class that just bombed the July exam, with an LSAT range of 153/149/146 compared to the 2013 group which had 153/150/147. The class that matriculated in 2015 is significantly worse, weaker even than the Whittier class that just achieved 22% on the July bar with an LSAT spread of 151/148/145. This fall's entering class rebounded slightly to 152/149/146 from last year, but is still weaker across the board than the class that just achieved 31%. What Golden Gate has done over the last five years is a textbook example of why the new bar passage standard must be approved by the house of delegates and why the ABA must closely scrutinize admissions practices and not focus solely on bar passage, which has a 4-5 year lag time after a class is admitted.
I don't know if the faculty at Golden Gate is bad or good. What I can tell you is that even the best faculty in the world would not be able to get a class with more than 50% high risk students to pass the California bar at a rate of 60% or higher. Their performance is very much in line with their competitor schools with similar student bodies.
Posted by: David Frakt | December 14, 2016 at 11:22 PM
LSAT and California Bar Exam bar passage are completely different, testing different skills altogether. How do you account for Hastings? Hastings is now paying for students to access popular supplements, such as BarEssays.com, to improve pass rates.
Posted by: Nate | December 15, 2016 at 01:27 AM
David
Thanks for your detailed examination of Golden Gate.
One small point of clarification. Ordinarily, one might be inclined to give the "benefit of the doubt" to a law school that has failed miserably to prepare students to pass the bar and which evinces such abysmal placement stats. In other words, in ordinary circumstance, we might conclude that the law school might be an example of a failing institution, but there would be no particular reason to blame the faculty, hypothetically speaking.
However, as noted above and in a recent article in the ABA Journal, "What do falling bar-passage rates mean for legal education--and the future of the profession?" Posted Sep 01, 2016 04:40 am CDT, By Mark Hansen (in which you are quoted):
"In fact, only two schools, both in California, have been placed on probation for violating the bar pass standard in the past decade or so: Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa and Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco. "
In other words, when you say that "I am not sure why the ABA has not yet taken action, but it is probably because of the incredibly long time that a school is given to report its bar exam results to the ABA." we must take into account recent history.
So, again, one asks: what fair inference can be drawn from a situation involving a case of a relatively recent prior probation, followed by a brief period of improvement, but then very soon followed by slippage, within about ten years, right back down to the very bottom of the barrel? It seems that one fair inference might be that the faculty tried when push came to shove, and got itself out of the woods, only to revert right back to the very bottom of law school performance (measured by bar pass rates, which is a fair measure).
Accordingly, we should be asking: how should the ABA handle a repeat violator of the bar pass standard? It seems to this writer that the fact of prior "discipline" that has had so little effect should be taken into consideration.
Moreover, as recently posted by Dan Filler on this site, and as one recalls, Golden Gate came in near the very bottom of all law schools (197 out of 203) in job placement rates.
Appalling doesn't begin to describe the absurdity of ABA accreditation of a law school that has failed so miserably, even after given ample time and a prior probationary period, to improve its bar passage rate and a law school that provides students, who pay a hefty sum for the privilege of attendance, such a dismal job placement.
If the ABA intends to maintain any semblance of credibility as an accrediting authority, it must begin to address glaring examples of its regulatory negligence. If it does not, growing calls to strip the ABA of its authority and move that authority elsewhere should gain traction.
Posted by: anon | December 15, 2016 at 04:20 AM
It seems to me that Golden Gate did what a lot of bottom tier schools did during the downturn in law school enrollment over the past years - they lowered their admissions standards in order to stay in business, and hoped for the best. If they had been in a state other than California, they probably would have gotten away with it, at least for a while. Schools in states with easier bars, like Florida and North Carolina, dropped their standards even lower, and it took an extra two years before bar pass rates starting dropping below 50%. I don't know if the faculty at Golden Gate remained constant since the last time they were put on probation, but they certainly should have learned from their past experience. But fear of losing their jobs has a very powerful effect on admissions committees and law school administrators. Time and time again, we have seen law schools refuse to make tough decisions on admissions because to do so would imperil their own employment. Law schools may have also been lulled into a belief that they could get away with such outrageous behavior because, until the past several months, the ABA has been asleep at the switch. While the sanctioning of Ave Maria and Valparaiso and the placing of Charlotte on probation are positive steps that may serve as a wake up call to their peer schools, there are many other schools who have engaged in identical admissions practices with similarly and predictably awful bar passage results. Arizona Summit, Florida Coastal, Golden Gate, Whittier, Thomas Cooley and Thomas Jefferson all come to mind, but there are others.
Posted by: David Frakt | December 15, 2016 at 08:08 AM
David, do you have any knowledge of the current status of the new ABA bar pass rate proposal (75% in two years)? Any thoughts on the likelihood of passing that standard?
Second, a topic not widely discussed is subject matter choices. Prior to the decline in LSATs, many of the schools you note taught a mix of black letter law and theory, with maybe a 75-25 split. (I'm generalizing of course, but I think this is a fair claim). My understanding is that that ratio is mostly still the same at many of these schools. Perhaps this is due to path dependence, but who knows?
IMHO, if a school admits a class with numbers like 150/148/146, faculty should reconsider whether to teach the more esoteric materials. No one likes to become a "trade school," and I'm not denouncing these topics per se (I teach theory myself). But at some point it becomes ethically questionable to continue the pedagogical status quo.
Posted by: Anon Prof | December 15, 2016 at 10:11 AM
Keep up the great work, Professor Frakt!
Posted by: LaVonna | December 15, 2016 at 12:03 PM
Anon Prof, I can answer that question. The ABA Section of Legal Education passed the revised bar passage standard (316) and non-exploitation standard (501) overwhelmingly a few months ago. The ABA House of Delegates will now be asked to acquiesce to the revisions. I expect there's a fight brewing there, but even if the House declines to acquiesce, the Section of Legal Education can still pass the standards with another vote. Given the overwhelming nature of the victory in the Council, I don't see why they'd reverse course. Stranger things have happened in 2016, however.
Posted by: Kyle McEntee | December 15, 2016 at 12:49 PM
Thank you, LaVonna.
Posted by: David Frakt | December 15, 2016 at 01:54 PM
Nate - I realize that the LSAT is not the same as the California bar, but there is very strong correlation between the ability to do well on the LSAT and the ability to pass the California bar. As for Hastings, I have a theory about what went wrong there, but this is only speculation, as I have no personal knowledge about has gone on there. With that caveat, here goes: for many years, elite law schools have largely ignored the bar exam. Their assumption was that their students were smart enough to pass the bar with a few weeks of concentrated effort and a bar review course. When I went to Harvard Law School (class of ‘94), for example, I don’t remember a single professor in the course of three years ever mentioning the bar exam. And this assumption proved to be true for many years. Students at elite schools could take whatever classes they were interested in, study as much or as little as they felt like, and then take Bar-Bri and cram for 6 weeks and pass the bar. Elite schools routinely had bar pass rates in the 90s without ever putting any focused effort into specifically helping students to prepare for the bar. Professors focused on their scholarship, which is what elite law schools cared about, and, to a lesser extent, teaching. Students had few required courses beyond the first year, and many chose courses based on what sounded interesting, or easy, or what fit their desired schedule, rather than what was going to be tested on the bar.
UC Hastings, like all the other UC schools, has been a top 50 school for many years, and probably followed this approach, placing little, if any, emphasis on bar preparation. Their bar pass rate was good -- 80% in 2010 and 79% in 2011 -- but then it started to slip - 76% in 2012, 74% in 2013, 68% in 2014, 69% in 2015. This should have concerned UC Hastings, but they were still 2-4% above the state average, so they probably thought they were fine. But they weren't because their admissions standards were slipping. In 2011, their LSATs were 165/162/157 with GPAs of 3.73/3.6/3.38. Even their 75th percentile students were very bright. A 157 was between the 70th and 71st percentile on the LSAT in 2011 and a 3.38 likely put the student in the top third of their college class. But in 2013, they had dropped to 163/159/155 and 3.69/3.52/3.28. A 155 in 2013 was at the 63rd percentile. Still smart, but not quite very smart. And the hidden bottom 24% was probably well below that because of vastly increased competition among law schools to get students in the 148-154 range. Consider this fact: In 2011, Hastings received 5167 applications and they admitted 1491 (29%). In 2013 they received 3944 applications and admitted 1597 (40%). So while UC Hastings probably still considered itself an elite school, its students were no longer nearly as elite. This meant that the school could no longer take for granted that students would pass the bar. But I doubt that the professors or Deans realized this, because nobody there had probably ever thought much about the bar before, and they probably didn’t consider a drop of two on the LSAT and a tenth of a point UGPA at the bottom of the class to be significant. But it is. And they have now learned that the hard way.
Posted by: David Frakt | December 15, 2016 at 02:32 PM
The 2016 509 reports are out, and the LSAT for Whittier have gone down significantly: 144 146 149
Posted by: Scott Fruehwald | December 15, 2016 at 02:33 PM
David
Back to the responsibility of the faculty at Golden Gate and other schools, I would agree that egregious admission policies are a daunting challenge.
However, as Scott Fruehwald would tell you, there are ways to teach that enhance performance. And, at least for Golden Gate, we have the proof that the faculty dug itself out, when push came to shove. They tried. But, as soon as the heat was off, look what has happened.
These facts are telling. It is long past the time to acknowledge that not all law faculties are high quality, exceptional individuals. A law school like Golden Gate might be inclined to tell you the same thing, boasting about factors other than teaching and scholarship that it believes are most important in putting together a faculty.
In any event, the stats show what an abysmal regulatory failure Golden Gate represents. The ABA cannot be permitted to remain in control if it consistently ignores egregious conditions that demonstrably hurt individuals.
Posted by: anon | December 15, 2016 at 03:56 PM