Keogh Cox’s recent blog entry “Did I pass?” looked at recent changes to the Louisiana attorney’s “bar” examination and discussed the negative impact these changes seem to be having on the bar passage rate. Since that post, the results from the July, 2013 exam were released, and they are not good. In fact, the overall passage rate (53.34%) was among the lowest ever for a July examination.
By way of recap, on October 19, 2011, the Louisiana Supreme Court ordered the implementation of the first changes to the grading standards of the Louisiana Bar exam since the exam was instituted. These changes: began “compensatory scoring;” eliminated essay portions of the test; included “multiple choice” format portions; doubled the score value of the “Code subjects;” ended the “conditional failure” status; and, placed a five-time limit on unsuccessful attempts to pass.
The following reflects how the graduates of various law schools fared in the recent exam:
SCHOOL # PASSED FAILED
LSU 171 120(70.18%) 51(29.82%)
LOYOLA 203 115(56.65%) 88(43.35%)
SOUTHERN 154 53(34.42%) 101(65.58%)
TULANE 88 56(63.64%) 32(36.36%)
OTHER 147 63(42.86%) 84(57.14%)
TOTAL 763 407(53.34%) 356(46.66%)
The consistent decline in the overall applicant passage rate since the recent changes suggests that these low numbers can no longer be regarded as a coincidence.
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