July 2014 California Bar Exam Results

The July 2014 California bar passage rates by school are out. Here are the results for first time test takers for the 21 California ABA-approved law schools, along with each school's U.S. News ranking (California and overall):

Bar Pass Rank (Rate)	School	US News Rank CA (Overall)
1 (88.3%)	UC-Berkeley	2 (9)
2 (87.6%)	Stanford	1 (3)
3 (86.6%)	USC	4 (20)
4 (85.6%)	UC-Davis	5 (36)
5 (81.7%)	UCLA	3 (16)
6 (79.9%)	Loyola-L.A.	9 (87)
7 (77.7%)	Pepperdine	6 (54)
8 (77.1%)	UC-Irvine	n/r
9 (74.8%)	Chapman	11 (140)
10 (72.7%)	San Diego	8 (79)
11 (71.3%)	California Western	Tier 2
69.4%	Statewide Ave. (CA ABA-Approved)
12 (68.3%)	UC-Hastings	6 (54)
13 (65.5%)	La Verne	n/r
14 (61.4%)	San Francisco	Tier 2
15 (60.5%)	McGeorge	12 (146)
16 (60.4%)	Santa Clara	10 (107)
17 (58.8%)	Western State	Tier 2
18 (54.4%)	Southwestern	Tier 2
19 (44.7%)	Thomas Jefferson	Tier 2
20 (43.8%)	Golden Gate	Tier 2
21 (42.7%)	Whittier	Tier 2

The big story this year is the striking decline in the bar passage rate:

• First time test takers from ABA-aproved law schools:  down 6.5 percentage points
• All test takers:  down 7.1 percentage points

These declines are concentrated in the lowest ranked schools:

• First time test takers at the 5 highest ranked schools:  down 1.5 percentage points
• First time test takers at the 5 lowest tanked schools:  down 12.3 percentage points

Among the individual law schools, the biggest underperformers in bar passage are:

• UC-Hastings:  #6 among California law schools in U.S. News (#54 overall), #12 in bar passage (and below the statewide average)
• UC-Irvine:  its stated goal is to be a Top 20 law school in its inaugural U.S. News ranking to be announced this March, which would place it 4th in the state (tied with USC), but its bar passage rate is only 8th in the state, below UC-Davis, Loyola-L.A., and Pepperdine.  UC-Irvine was also 8th in the state in bar passage in 2013 (again below UC-Davis, Loyola-L.A., and Pepperdine)
• Santa Clara:  #10 among California law schools in U.S. News (#107 overall), #16 in bar passage (and below the statewide average)
• UCLA:  #3 among California law schools in U.S. News (#16 overall), #5 in bar passage
• McGeorge:  #12 among California law schools in U.S. News (#146 overall), #15 in bar passage

Among the individual law schools, the biggest overperformers on bar passage are:

• Loyola-L.A.:  #9 among California law schools in U.S. News (#87 overall), #6 in bar passage
• Chapman:  #11 among California law schools in U.S. News (#140 overall), #9 in bar passage
• California Western:  Tier 2 in U.S. News, 11th in bar passage
• La Verne:  unranked in U.S. News, 13th in bar passage

Here are the out-of-state schools with the highest and lowest pass rates:

• 97.1%:  Michigan (35 test-takers)
• 96.7%:  Duke (30)
• 92.6%:  Pennsylvania (27)
• 90.0%:  William & Mary (10)
• 89.5%:  Boston University (19)
• 87.9%:  Harvard (91)
• 87.0%:  BYU (23)
• 86.7%:  Cornell (15)
• 20.0%:  Hofstra (5)
• 14.2%:   Case Western(7)
• 6.3%:    Thomas Cooley (16)
• 0.0%:   Loyola=New Orleans (6), Phoenix (13), Seattle (5)

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• July 2013 Results
• July 2012 Results
• July 2011 Results
• July 2010 Results
• July 2009 Results
• July 2008 Results