LSU tops bar exam passage in report
LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center has the best bar exam passage rates in the nation when compared to the LSAT scores of incoming law school students, according to a national report.
The new study by The National Jurist magazine on the “Best Schools for Bar Exam Preparation” examines bar passage rates compared to the academic quality of students who enter the law school through the results of the Law School Admission Test or LSAT.
The argument is that the graduates of most law schools pass bar exams relative to the academic preparedness of the new students. “But some schools ... buck the averages,” according to the article. The LSU Law Center reportedly leads the nation in bucking the trend with a large standard deviation of 1.77 over the 1.00 average score.
Campbell University in North Carolina and the Stanford University Law School followed at second and third nationally, respectively. They were the only other schools with deviations over 1.50. The University of California at Berkeley and the University of Southern California were next in line.
The article contends that LSU is somewhat of an anomaly because of the state’s civil law code and the unique Louisiana Bar Examination that graduates must pass in order to practice law in the state.
“LSU benefits from a unique bar exam based on civil code and no MBE (multistate bar examination),” according to the article. “This makes it easier for in-state graduates to pass the exam, allowing the school to perform better in the study.”
Louisiana is one of just two states to feature an all-essay bar exam, and the Louisiana Supreme Court is currently considering moving to a more nationally standardized exam, which LSU opposes.
LSU Law Center Chancellor Jack Weiss said in an email response Tuesday that the new report means high praise for LSU. But he disagreed that the Louisiana bar exam skews the data in LSU’s favor.
“Detailed statistical studies performed for the Supreme Court Committee on Bar Admissions just last year concluded that there is no difference in the performance of Louisiana law school students and out-of-state law school students on the civil law versus the non-civil law parts of the bar exam,” Weiss stated. “Moreover, LSU Law students consistently pass the Louisiana bar exam at a higher rate than the graduates of the other three Louisiana law schools.”
In 2011, LSU stayed in first in the state with 86.5 percent of the new graduates passing out of those who took the bar exam in July. Tulane University Law School came in second in the state with a 78.6 percent passage rate. The Loyola University College of Law had a 69.6 percent rate. Graduates of the Southern University Law Center had a 62.2 percent passage rate.
“The National Jurist study confirms that our faculty, our students and our program are working together to provide an effective legal education — one that actually works when it’s put to the test on the bar exam,” Weiss stated. “We’re changing students’ lives and offering them a chance at success and opportunity way beyond what the LSAT data might predict.”
Weiss also noted that LSU frequently ranks in the top 10 best financial values for law school. “I think many prospective students will look at these two rankings together and find that a pretty powerful combination,” he wrote.