The University of North Texas opened in the fall of 2014, enrolling 153 students. In the fall of 2015, in their second year of operation, the school applied for provisional accreditation. The ABA conducted a site visit in February 2016. Initially, the accreditation committee recommended denying provisional accreditation. One of the reasons the committee cited was the poor academic qualifications of the admitted students. Indeed, the July 11, 2016 letter to the school outlining the recommendation stated that the “Law School is admitting applicants that do not appear capable of satisfactorily completing its program of legal education and being admitted to the bar.” The LSAT and grade profile of the inaugural class (entering 2014) was very weak, especially at the bottom quartile: 151/147/143 and 3.32/3.05/2.69. Troublingly, these credentials declined slightly in 2015 to 150/146/143 and 3.36/3.04/2.66 even as the enrollment shrank to 137. Under great pressure and amid claims that UNT was a new kind of law school with innovative programs designed to ensure that students of modest ability would succeed at greater rates than other law schools, the ABA caved in and granted provisional accreditation to UNT in June 2017, enabling its first class of graduates to take the bar in Texas and other states in July 2017.
The results of the July 2017 bar exam have just been released by the Texas Board of Bar Examiners and UNT’s results demonstrate that the concerns the accreditation committee expressed back in 2016 were right on the money. (But way to go Baylor – 93%!) UNT finished dead last out of the 10 law schools in Texas, with a first-time pass rate of 59.3%, an inauspicious start to say the least. The school was 21.6% below the state average for Texas ABA schools (80.95%), and 19.8% below the first-time average for all ABA graduates (79.1%). In fact, only 35 of 59 UNT takers passed, which raises the question of what happened to the other 94 students who started in the fall of 2014? UPDATE – I found this press release from UNT that says they had 74 graduates, so apparently less than half of those who started at UNT graduated on time. To put UNT’s bar pass rate in context, UNT was over 4% below the 9th place school, Texas Southern. Texas Southern was recently ordered to take remedial measures after the Accreditation Committee found that the law school was violating Standard 501 on admissions (among other standards). Texas Southern’s entering class of 2014 had similar (actually, slightly worse) credentials as UNT, especially at the bottom quartile: 148/145/143 and 3.34/3.02/3.72. Of 166 Texas Southern students who started in the fall of 2014, 110 took the Texas Bar in July and 70 passed, for a 63.64% rate. So, whatever its faults, Texas Southern got more of its high-risk students to graduate and pass the bar than UNT did this summer. Based on UNT’s performance, there is no evidence that UNT’s specially designed curriculum was particularly effective at preparing students for the bar exam. With the class of 2018 having even weaker credentials than their inaugural class, UNT will need to dramatically step up its bar prep game if it hopes to improve its bar pass results next summer and get into compliance with ABA Standard 316.
Many schools have tried, and failed, to find a magic formula to get students with 144 and below LSATs to pass the bar at even marginally acceptable rates. The truth is that few students who perform at this level on the LSAT are likely to thrive in law school. The safer bet to ensure a pass rate within 15% of the state average would be to raise the bottom quartile to 147, and take students with (slightly) lower LSATs only if they had significantly better than average college grades. UNT did raise admission standards very slightly in 2016 to 151/147/144 and 3.39/3.05/2.72, but this means that at least a quarter of its students are still at extremely high risk of failure (144 and below), and many more are at very high risk. (No word on the credentials of this fall's entering class. If anyone knows, please share.) UNT should not receive full accreditation until it raises admission standards further or demonstrates that it can get a high percentage of high-risk students to complete their J.D. and pass the bar. Although UNT is to be commended for keeping the cost of law school as low as possible, if over 40% of its graduates fail the bar, it's no bargain.
So? Big whoop. My very first trial at 24 years old, I tripped on my "little hands." (Allegory to Donald Trump). Henry Ford's first car was an economic disaster. Apple almost went bankrupt during the 90s…. Everybody deserves a chance. Gosh, its only their first year of operation.
This is very bad news for UNT. I've taught at two new law schools and know from experience that an inaugural class is different from those that come after it. This is because they are risk-takers and have something to prove to the world. Unless UNT takes immediate and radical steps to address this issue, their bar passage rates will almost certainly go down. Shuffling the chairs on the deck will not do.
Innovation often requires iteration. I hope the ABA doesn't call the hearse just yet. So long as they keep tuition down and disclose to potential students, why not trust 0Ls to make their own decisions?
Stumbles??? What planet are you living on? 59% passage rate is damn good for the first time out. As a practicing trial lawyer for 45 years, I can assure you UNTD Law is on the right track. Those of us in the trenches know LSAT scores are not the be all and the end all. We in the profession are looking for honest, hard working lawyers with grit and determination. That's what UNTD Law is giving us now and will continue to give us in the future. Sorry professor, but I believe you are mistaken on this one.
Al Ellis –
I am living on the planet in which 81% of students at other Texas Law Schools passed the bar the first time, and in which the vast majority of students who start at the school, earn their degrees and graduate three years, later, not less than half like UNT.
I am also living on a planet in which it is widely understood that the bar pass rate at a new law school helps to determine its reputation for many years to come. That is why other recently opened law schools have tried hard to have a strong inaugural class and worked very hard to achieve a high bar pass rate. Just to give you some examples, UC Irvine's inaugural graduating class (2013) had a 91% first time pass rate, including 90% in California, 19% above the state average. Drexel's first pass rate was 90% (2009), third highest in Pennsylvania. Elon's was 83% (2009) Lincoln Memorial's first time pass rate was 81% (2013). Belmont's first-time rate was 71% (2014). So, I have to respectfully disagree that 59% is "damn good for the first time out".
In fairness, two very small law schools have done worse than UNT – Indiana Tech, and Concordia. Indiana Tech shut down within months of the first bad bar result (1 of 12 graduates passed the Indiana bar in the summer of 2016) and its provisional accreditation has now been rescinded. Concordia had a 55% rate in 2015, but that was only with 9 students so it is too small a sample to say much. In 2016, they were around 80%. Their bar pass rate for July 2017 was much higher, 90% in Idaho, according to a former Associate Dean there.
LSAT scores may not be the "be all and the end all" but it is simply indisputable that students with very low LSATs fail out of law school and fail the bar at very high rates. If UNT wants to improve its bar pass rate significantly to be competitive then it has to raise its admission standards.
It could be worse. At least The Honorable Justice Roy Moore isn't an alum.
For what it is worth, I believe Frakt has his thumb on the pulse of the issues.
To throw a bone to the other side: is the argument that DFW does not have enough capacity for the masses of non-traditional, full-time working people who can only attend law school part time, and would if oh-only they could? DFW has SMU as well as Wesleyan-turned-TAMU, which managed to score as well as SMU bar-passage-wise this year. Baylor, while not next door as the crow flies, is hardly small potatoes and is just down the road when using the Texas Driving Scale(tm). Hell, I knew people who drove back and forth from Oklahoma to Dallas every day for their work-a-day jobs, and I thought that was crazy back in the 80s. Part-time at Baylor is not impossible by that standard. Throw in some occasional fancy-pants internet distance-learning stuff to keep some of the burden down for folks, and you're set!
I can't see how Texas needs "yet another" law school, especially in the DFW area. Is there really an unmet need? More likely, are folks trying to outdo Florida? Or California?