Results from the July 2017 administration of the California bar exam were released on November 16, 2018, and that day marked a dismal new low for exam-takers in the state. In July 2017, almost half of all test-takers passed the state’s notoriously difficult professional entry exam, but this past summer, almost everyone failed. The overall pass rate for the July 2018 exam was 40.7 percent (down from from 49.6 percent in July 2017), while the pass rate for first-time takers was 55 percent (down from 62 percent in July 2017). This was the worst pass rate the state had seen in nearly 70 years.
Given the fact that so few of those who took the exam were able to pass it, people have been wondering about the pass rates by law school. Until now, the only information we’ve had with regard to law schools has been the overall pass rates for first-time takers who attended ABA-accredited law schools, both in-state (64 percent) and out-of-state (58 percent). A little more than one month has passed, and now we know that almost every single ABA-accredited law school in the state of California saw its pass rate sink. We’ve collected all of the bar exam pass rates for these California law schools, thanks to Pepperdine Law Dean Paul Caron’s report at TaxProf Blog.
Which in-state law schools did the best on the test, and which schools did the worst?
Congratulations go out once again to Stanford Law, which has claimed the number-one pass rate for first-time takers for four years in a row, with 91 percent of its graduates passing the exam (down from 96 percent last summer). Second-place honors go to UC Berkeley, with an 86 percent pass rate for first-timers (down from 89 percent last summer). Even T14 law schools were affected by this past summer’s plague of declining pass rates on the California bar exam.
But how did everyone else do?
Here’s a list we’ve created of pass rates for first-time takers on the July 2018 administration of the exam for all 21 ABA-accredited California law schools:
