Thursday, September 17, 2015
More Bar Exam Carnage?
Bar Exam Stats, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, and Nebraska Release 2015 July Bar Exam Results
- I. Richard Gershon (Former Dean, Mississippi), Pruning the Weeds?
- Deborah Jones Merritt (Ohio State), July 2015 Bar Exam Results
- Derek Muller (Pepperdine), July 2015 Bar Exam Results Again Show Declining Pass Rates Almost Everywhere: Outliers, or a Sign of More Carnage?
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/09/more-bar-exam-carbage.html
Comments
Don't worry, the doctors attracted to the medical profession will be just as good as always.
It's not as if making a career less attractive lowers the quality?
Posted by: ubik | Sep 17, 2015 5:45:44 PM
Wait until we get to the main event, e.g. New York, California, Illinois and Massachusetts. The decline might be near 20% in any of those jurisdictions. You can bet it will be national news.
Re the Gershon article, he relies on other Deans' statements about the quality of the incoming class when all of that info is publicly available and aggregated in numerous places. That is just pathetic.
Posted by: JM | Sep 17, 2015 9:38:36 AM
Joho -- I hear ya. A simple Google search makes clear that the caliber of students has declined (specifically, they are not good test takers, based on LSAT scores). It makes sense that there's some correlation between LSAT scores and MBE scores.
Posted by: anon. 25 | Sep 17, 2015 9:27:30 AM
Where does Dean Gershon attempt to blame examsoft or the NCBE? I believe he makes a valid point. We criticize an easy inflow of future potential lawyers, but not a lot of criticism is directed at the outflow of lawyers.
Posted by: Daniel | Sep 17, 2015 7:56:52 AM
Gershon's post is shameful, but worth a read. These data end the "it was ExamSoft's fault" argument.
From that wreckage, a new boogeyman emerges. Apparently the NCBE is out to get new entrants. This, apparently, is embraced by the protectionist bar who themselves may need thinning.
Of course, this is nonsense. A few short years ago, we had record numbers of matrics with sky high numbers. They passed the exam with flying colors.
Justice Scalia asked why so many of our best and brightest are going into a servant's profession. Then the data got bad, or more accurately, the bad data got transparent. The smart money stopped going.
Now that it is apparent that a decline in applicant scores equates to a decline in bar exam performance, the schools want to blame the MBE?
Scoundrels!
Posted by: Jojo | Sep 17, 2015 4:34:01 AM
Word has leaked out that much of lawyering has transformed into a nitwit profession.
Posted by: Arctic Fox | Sep 17, 2015 7:29:58 PM