Law School Accreditors Raising the Bar

[Panthergrowl13]

Interesting article appearing in Wall Street Journal (11/22/16)

I know there are many lawyers on this site so I thought I would just bring up this topic for comment.

With the percentage of fledgling lawyers failing state licensing exams on the rise, national accreditors are getting tough and telling law schools to better prepare students for practice or risk losing their accreditation.

The American Bar Association, which oversees the nations more than 200 accredited laws schools is working on a new rule that would require 75% of a law school's graduates sitting for a bar exam to pass it within two years.

The proposal, which recently cleared a key administrative hurdle could be implemented early next year.

Declining bar-passage rates have alarmed people in the legal profession, with some attributing the downward trend to schools lowering admission standards as applications to law schools continue to decline.

California reported Friday the passage rate for first-time test takers on its most recent bar exam was 56%, down from 63.3 % four years ago. Ohio reported a 76% first time rate passage rate, down from 85% in 2012.

The number of people applying to law school has fallen by almost 40 % over the past several years.
If law schools keep the number of students admitted to a class the same, they will have to accept students with lower LSAT and GPA's.

Well it looks like those students are starting to finally affect bar passage rates.

I know Pitt has reduced admissions to Pitt Law School by almost 30% to maintain standards.

I am not sure if Rutgers (Camden and Newark) has also significantly reduced admissions to maintain standards.

If a Law Student spends $150,000 or more on a law school education and cannot pass the bar can he/she bring a suit against the law school for not providing an adequate education.

For profit law schools and others could be in the cross hairs.

Camdenlawprof what say yee.

HAIL TO PITT!!!!

 

[NotInRHouse]

Two things

- Many states have moved to the national bar exam. NY has and I believe NJ is following. This means the bar will be MUCH easier because it will not have state specific law. The NY exam used to require knowing various state statutes of limitations, trusts and wills, family law...that is all out the window. Bar passage should go way up.

The positive aspect of this is that you have reciprocity with the other states for admission that use the national exam. Some states are always going to buck the tide, but NY is a big state when it comes to this. I would still be shocked if CA, FL and TX changed but you never know.

- What really needs to happen is there need to be only about 100 law schools. Some of these t3 & 4 schools, while yes, what you are learning is the same cases you learn at Yale, the career prospects will leave you riddled with debt on a teacher's (if that) salary. Even white shoe firms are not raising salaries bigly.

 

[retired711]

Rutgers Newark and Rutgers Camden are now one law school: Rutgers Law School. Admissions are unitary. The size of both campuses' first year classes have been dropping, particularly in Camden. To the best of my knowledge, both campuses would easily surpass the ABA benchmark; only border-line schools (the kind that should be going out of business anyway) would have a serious problem.

 

[HeavenUniv.]

Camden,
Is there a limit to how many times a student can take the Bar exam ?--Should Rutgers do a better job at promoting the fact that RU has a law school ? Maybe send speakers/recruiters into high school history/political science classes,clubs,college fairs,etc. to start recruiting them at an early age ?

 

[retired711]

Camden,
Is there a limit to how many times a student can take the Bar exam ?--Should Rutgers do a better job at promoting the fact that RU has a law school ? Maybe send speakers/recruiters into high school history/political science classes,clubs,college fairs,etc. to start recruiting them at an early age ?

It's up to each state whether to put a limit on the number of times a law school graduate can take the bar. I have heard of graduates failing and failing and failing, but in general almost everyone passes on either the first or second try. Anyone who fails their second try is likely not to be successful in future attempts.

Yes, RU should do a better job of promoting the existence of the law school. But more fundamentally, Rutgers must put more resources into the law school if it wants a law school that is comparable to other B1G schools. (It's like athletics; you need to make an investment to get programs that compete in the B1G). At the moment, we are behind almost all of the B1G universities that have law schools.

I know we recruit at colleges, and we need to do a better job of that. I am not sure recruitment at the high school level would do much. It might encourage students to consider the 3/3 plan under which a student is simultaneously enrolled in college and law school in their fourth year with the idea of completing graduation requirements a year earlier than normal.