Summary: The National Jurist has named the best schools for student bar exam preparation.
The National Jurist has recognized 40 law schools for having the best bar exam preparation. While bar exam passage rates have declined in the past five years, the publication believes that the “decline should slow.” This conclusion is based upon analysis of the LSAT scores and pass rates from the classes of 2013 and 2014. Using linear regression, the magazine predicts that the bar pass rate will fall to 80.25% for the class of 2018, a less than one percent drop from 2014. While there is still a decline, the number is less steep than the decrease from 2009 (89% bar passage rate) to 2014 (81% bar passage rate.) This slowage brings hope to the legal community, which has shown concern about the quality of law school graduates over the years.
“Law schools have taken great strides to assist students and it is having a statistically valid improvement on pass rates,” said Jack Crittenden, editor-in-chief of The National Jurist. “If rates drop further, it appears it will be due to other causes than the intellectual capacity of the current classes.”
Top-tier schools such as Arizona State University, University of California–Berkeley, and Stanford University made the list; while other well-known heavy hitters like Harvard and Yale were excluded. According to The National Jurist, they were looking for schools that performed “better than expected.” This list includes Lincoln Memorial University John J. Duncan, Jr. School of Law, which was given provisional accreditation in 2014.
Florida International University School of Law made this year’s list. The school had an impressive 87.5% pass rate for the July 2016 test, despite the entire state seeing an overall dip. R. Alexander Acosta, the Dean of FIU College of Law, credited the school’s bar passage success to the graduates and faculty.
“FIU Law graduates continue to excel, in passing the bar and subsequently in employment results. Our students’ work ethic and dedication, as well as the quality of teaching from our faculty, are evidenced in these results,” said Acosta.
The National Jurist will release a detailed report of the best schools for bar exam prep in its Winter 2017 issue. The forty schools selected are below in alphabetical order:
AKRON, UNIVERSITY OF
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
BALTIMORE, UNIVERSITY OF
BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY, UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA-DAVIS, UNIVERSITY OF
CAMPBELL UNIVERSITY
CAPITAL UNIVERSITY
DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY
FLORIDA A&M UNIVERSITY
FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
FLORIDA, UNIVERSITY OF
GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY
KENTUCKY, UNIVERSITY OF
LINCOLN MEMORIAL
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY-LOS ANGELES
MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY, UNIVERSITY OF
NEBRASKA, UNIVERSITY OF
NEW ENGLAND LAW | BOSTON
NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY
NORTH CAROLINA, UNIVERSITY OF
NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY
NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
SETON HALL UNIVERSITY
SOUTH DAKOTA, UNIVERSITY OF
SOUTH TEXAS COLLEGE OF LAW
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, UNIVERSITY OF
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY-CARBONDALE
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
STETSON UNIVERSITY
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
TOLEDO, UNIVERSITY OF
TULSA, UNIVERSITY OF
VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
WESTERN STATE COLLEGE OF LAW
WIDENER-COMMONWEALTH
Source: The National Jurist
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