The results from Florida’s administration of the July 2018 bar exam are out, and hot on the heels of the news that MBE scaled scores have reached a 34-year low, they’re not exactly pretty.
First, the good news: Three Law Schools were able to break the 80-percent mark as far as passage is concerned, and one of those schools has clinched the top passage rate on the July exam for the fifth year in a row. Next, the bad news: Two law School posted passage rates in the 50-percent range, and two law schools’ passage rates fell below 50 percent. The state’s overall passage rate for first-time takers was 67.2 percent, down 4.1 percentage points since the July 2017 administration of the exam.
Which schools performed the best on the test, and which performed the worst?
Here are the results for all Florida law schools for the July 2018 exam:
Congratulations go out once again to Florida International University College of Law on its continued string of victories! With an 88.1 percent passage rate, the law school has secured itself a spot in Florida history for consistently coming out on top.
Hovering around or below a 50 percent passage rate, law schools like Ave Maria (58.5 percent), Florida A&M (50.6 percent), Barry (45.5 percent), and Nova Southeastern (42.9 percent) seem to have put forth some less-than-inspired performances. For what it’s worth, students and graduates of Nova Southeastern seem to be particularly pissed off about these bar exam results. They want the school to change their required bar prep programming because they’re tired of being “the laughing stock of the legal community.” Perhaps deans at these law schools — especially at Nova — ought to consult with FIU Law; after all, former FIU dean (and current Labor Secretary) Alex Acosta once said that the school’s “bar exam preparation and Academic Excellence Program are unique in Florida and provide unparalleled opportunities for students to become better students and better lawyers.” Why not copy their programs?
Now, you may be wondering why Cooley Law’s Tampa Bay campus is nowhere to be found on the list of Florida bar exam results. As we noted previously, Cooley has never been listed by name on the state’s bar exam results list, even though its inaugural class graduated in 2015. Last spring, we spoke to Michelle Gavagni, the executive director of the Florida Board of Bar Examiners, who explained that Cooley Law’s results are lumped in with the results from non-Florida law schools, as it’s a campus of a law school that’s based in Michigan. The passage rate for all non-Florida law schools for the July 2018 exam was 63.8 percent. Although more recent data is not available, Cooley Law’s combined passage rate for first-time takers for the February and July 2017 administrations of the Florida bar exam was a solid 35.44 percent.
Congratulations to you if you were able to pass the bar exam in Florida this summer. If you didn’t pass, don’t despair. Many very successful people have failed the bar exam (see our list of famous bar exam failures). Focus on February and develop a plan for passing. Believe in yourselves, because you can — eventually — do it!
FIU Continues to Lead the Way in Bar Exam Pass Rates [Daily Business Review]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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