Law Schools with High Bar Exam Pass Rates in July 2023 Forum

[Anonymous User]

If you have attended any of the law schools below or have knowledge about their bar support programs, share your personal experiences with bar exam preparation or insights into what you believe contributes to the success of law schools in achieving high bar passage rates. Your answers would greatly help and add valuable insights for those who are considering or navigating legal education.

1.Florida International University (#60 in U.S. News)
2.Stanford University (#1)
3.University of Southern California (USC) (#16)
4.University of California, Berkeley (UC-Berkeley) (#10)
5.University of North Carolina (#22)
6.Belmont University (#105)
7.University of Michigan (#10)
8.Florida State University (#56)
9.University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (#14)
10.University of Virginia (#8)
11.Campbell University (#125)
12.Yale University (#1)
13.Louisiana State University (LSU) (#99)
14.University of Georgia (#20)
15.Duke University (#5)
16.Harvard University (#5)
17.Wake Forest University (#22)
18.Georgia State University (#69)
19.University of Chicago (#3)
20.University of Pennsylvania (Penn) (#4)
21.University of Illinois (#43)
22.Baylor University (#49)
23.Washington & Lee University (#40)
24.Liberty University (#135)
25.Vanderbilt University (#16)

[nixy]

The best way to get a high bar passage rate is to admit only applicants who are good at taking tests, that is, applicants with stellar academic credentials. That’s how schools like Yale and Stanford do it.

In any case, where did this list come from? These schools are so varied, there’s no reason why any one person would need to know about these schools specifically, because no one person will realistically be considering all these schools. And it’s not comprehensive enough to be a list of general applicability.

It’s true that some schools offer more bar exam support as part of their curriculum than others do, usually because they need to - their student body overall has weaker test-taking ability (that’s not a comment on their intelligence or ability to be a good lawyer). But what exactly that support is shouldn’t really be a consideration when picking a school. Bar passage rate tells you all you need to know to be able to compare specific schools. Generally, a bar prep course is all that should be necessary to pass the bar, anyway.

[jedibill]

OP took the list from the following law review article, which ranks law schools that overperform expectations of bar passage based on student credentials. One thing to note is that the article also weighs the difficulty of a state's bar exam, so Florida/California schools get a big bump.

Hilarious that this gets published in the Florida Law Review, though I guess at least neither of the authors are from a Florida school.

http://www.floridalawreview.com/2023/th ... -bar-exam/

[nixy]

Ah, thank you, that helps a lot.

I suppose the article could be useful for schools trying to increase their bar passage rate (but I’m a little dubious. My school had a 98% passage rate and the people who failed overwhelmingly either didn’t take studying seriously or got sick on the day of the exam. How much of a difference is the school curriculum actually going to make to those kinds of factors? But I’ll admit I didn’t read the stats section because I don’t have the expertise to understand it so maybe they are in fact incredibly convincing).

But I still don’t think this is anything that students themselves should be concerned with in picking a law school. Just look at the overall bar passage rate.

(Also I probably got sucked into responding to a bot question, alas.)

[msft]

Ah, thank you, that helps a lot.

I suppose the article could be useful for schools trying to increase their bar passage rate (but I’m a little dubious. My school had a 98% passage rate and the people who failed overwhelmingly either didn’t take studying seriously or got sick on the day of the exam. How much of a difference is the school curriculum actually going to make to those kinds of factors? But I’ll admit I didn’t read the stats section because I don’t have the expertise to understand it so maybe they are in fact incredibly convincing).

But I still don’t think this is anything that students themselves should be concerned with in picking a law school. Just look at the overall bar passage rate.

(Also I probably got sucked into responding to a bot question, alas.)

Or you can go to law school in S. Dakota and take their Bar Exam which has a first time pass rate of 90%

[nixy]

Ah, thank you, that helps a lot.

I suppose the article could be useful for schools trying to increase their bar passage rate (but I’m a little dubious. My school had a 98% passage rate and the people who failed overwhelmingly either didn’t take studying seriously or got sick on the day of the exam. How much of a difference is the school curriculum actually going to make to those kinds of factors? But I’ll admit I didn’t read the stats section because I don’t have the expertise to understand it so maybe they are in fact incredibly convincing).

But I still don’t think this is anything that students themselves should be concerned with in picking a law school. Just look at the overall bar passage rate.

(Also I probably got sucked into responding to a bot question, alas.)

Or you can go to law school in S. Dakota and take their Bar Exam which has a first time pass rate of 90%

You don't have to go to law school in South Dakota to take the South Dakota bar.

[msft]

Ah, thank you, that helps a lot.

I suppose the article could be useful for schools trying to increase their bar passage rate (but I’m a little dubious. My school had a 98% passage rate and the people who failed overwhelmingly either didn’t take studying seriously or got sick on the day of the exam. How much of a difference is the school curriculum actually going to make to those kinds of factors? But I’ll admit I didn’t read the stats section because I don’t have the expertise to understand it so maybe they are in fact incredibly convincing).

But I still don’t think this is anything that students themselves should be concerned with in picking a law school. Just look at the overall bar passage rate.

(Also I probably got sucked into responding to a bot question, alas.)

Or you can go to law school in S. Dakota and take their Bar Exam which has a first time pass rate of 90%

You don't have to go to law school in South Dakota to take the South Dakota bar.

Yes that's true.
I recall years ago that the Hawaii Bar Exam had an outrageously high pass rate, above 90%. Now it's down substantially.

[msft]

Ah, thank you, that helps a lot.

I suppose the article could be useful for schools trying to increase their bar passage rate (but I’m a little dubious. My school had a 98% passage rate and the people who failed overwhelmingly either didn’t take studying seriously or got sick on the day of the exam. How much of a difference is the school curriculum actually going to make to those kinds of factors? But I’ll admit I didn’t read the stats section because I don’t have the expertise to understand it so maybe they are in fact incredibly convincing).

But I still don’t think this is anything that students themselves should be concerned with in picking a law school. Just look at the overall bar passage rate.

(Also I probably got sucked into responding to a bot question, alas.)

Or you can go to law school in S. Dakota and take their Bar Exam which has a first time pass rate of 90%

You don't have to go to law school in South Dakota to take the South Dakota bar.

Yes that's true.
I recall years ago that the Hawaii Bar Exam had an outrageously high pass rate, above 90%. Now it's down substantially.

And I believe there are 4 states where you can take the Bar without going to law school