The 2017-8 Bottom Ten Law Schools Revisited

Law School admissions practices have improved so much over the last couple of years that this year, I discontinued the Bottom Ten List, my annual list of America's least selective law schools.  With applications way up this year, every law school in America should be able to raise their admission standards even further, while still allowing for modest growth in their first year class. As a reminder of the human cost of exploitative admissions policies, and as a cautionary tale to any schools that might be tempted to lower admission standards, I thought it might be instructive to revisit my bottom ten list for the entering class of 2017-18  and see how the very high risk students that those schools admitted that year ultimately fared, as those full-time students who matriculated in the fall of 2017 should have graduated in the spring of 2020 and taken the bar in the summer (or fall) of 2020.  The bar exam outcomes for 2020 graduates have recently been released by the ABA and are available here. 

My list of the least selective law schools in 2017-8 was as follows:

1. Western Michigan University (Thomas Cooley)

2. Texas Southern

3. (tie) Appalachian

3.  (tie) Southern 

5. (tie) Thomas Jefferson

5.  (tie) Charleston

7.  NC Central

8. (tie) Atlanta's John Marshall

8. (tie) Florida A&M University

10. Concordia.

So, how did the students at the 10 least selective law schools in the country fare?  Not surprisingly, pretty poorly.  Unfortunately, Concordia is now out of business and Thomas Jefferson is now a State Accredited Law School, having lost their ABA accreditation, so we don't have ABA statistics for these schools (although we do have California results for TJ, which is where the vast majority of their graduates take the bar).

Here is a breakdown:

1. WMU - first time pass rate: 45.92% - 30% below weighted ABA average.    
2. Texas Southern - first time pass rate 51.74% overall, 47.62% in Texas - 24.4% below weighted ABA average.
3. Appalachian - 41.18% first time pass rate, 40.37% below weighted ABA average.
4. Southern - 41.66% first time pass rate, 35.33% below weighted ABA average (but this was based on only 12 students who took the bar out of Louisiana - 55 were granted admission to the Louisiana bar through diploma privilege).
5. Charleston - 52.63% first time, 22% below weighted ABA average.
6. Thomas Jefferson - 47% first time pass rate under California's new lower cut score bar exam, 37% below the average for California ABA law grads of 84%.
7. NC Central - 79.31% first time pass rate.  Pretty darn good at first glance, just 2.8% below weighted average. But recall how NC State achieved this - by massive first year academic attrition which got NC Central in hot water with the ABA.  166 students matriculated in 2017.  Only 113 graduated in 2020 and only 86 of those took the bar.  Still NC Central is doing something right.
8. Atlanta's John Marshall - 60% first time pass rate, 16% below weighted ABA average.  But out of 216 that started in 2017, only 100 graduated, and only 80 took the bar.
9. FAMU - 58% first time in Florida, 61% overall, 9.5% below weighted average.  Started with class of 222. Had 149 grads in 2020 and 32 didn't take the bar yet.  So-so.
10. Concordia - unknown.

Although we have become somewhat inured to poor bar performances over the last few years, it is still shocking to see an ABA accredited law school with a first-time bar pass rate below 50%.   I have previously calculated that schools with a first-time pass rate below 55% are unlikely to reach the 75% Ultimate Bar Pass Rate, whereas schools above 60% are likely to do so.  Using this rough estimate, the 6 least selective law schools of 2017 are all likely to fall short on UBP for this class, while John Marshall Atlanta and FAMU will likely be cutting it close.  Of this group, NC Central is the only one that hit the 75% benchmark on the first try.  But they achieved that in part by academically attriting over 20% of their first-year class, a level deemed by the ABA to be presumptively problematic. 

The good news is that all of these law schools, with the one notable exception of Southern, have raised their admission standards significantly in the last two admission cycles, especially Western Michigan.  As long as these schools maintain or improve their current admissions practices, there should be few repeats of 2020's summer's dismal bar performance.   There are still a few schools with weak classes moving through this year and next, most notably WMU, Appalachian, Southern and Texas Southern (see here and here) but the days of sub-50 first time bar pass rates are rapidly coming to a close.  And that's very good news.

 

Comments

[anon]

Does anyone remember the "best time to go to law school" pitch that some folks came into the FL lounge to shamelessly promulgate?

Remember the posts about how there would be a shortage of attorneys, etc.? No resumes submitted in response to pleas from legal employers? Given the sharp decline in admissions over the years, what have we seen?

What was claimed? see e.g.:

"Because I want prospective law students to know that this time I mean it. Enroll today or you will miss out on what might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Namely, the chance to graduate from law school in 2017-2018, which will likely be one of the best times ever to graduate from law school."

Was it?