Wednesday, July 12, 2017
California Supreme Court Strips Authority Of Bar Examiners To Set Cut Score; Lower Cut Score May Apply Retroactively To July Test-Takers
- ABA Journal, California Supreme Court Asserts its Authority to Determine Passing Bar Exam Grade
- Above the Law, California Bar Examiners Stripped Of Authority To Determine Passing Score On State Bar Exam
- Daily Journal, State Supreme Court Says It Must Set Bar Exam Passing Score
- Stephen Diamond (Santa Clara), California Supreme Court Responds (Finally) to State’s Bar Exam Crisis
- Fleming’s Fundamentals of Law, Committee of Bar Examiners Stripped of Authority to Decide Bar Passage Scores
Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:
- July 2016 California Bar Exam (Nov. 22, 2016)
- More On The California Bar Exam (Dec. 5, 2016)
- Who Is To Blame For UC-Hastings 'Horrific' 51% Bar Pass Rate? (Dec. 7, 2016)
- July 2016 California Bar Exam Results: Nine Law Schools (Including UC-Hastings) Are At Risk Of Failing ABA's Proposed New Bar Passage Accreditation Standard (Dec. 13, 2016)
- Anderson: Deans, Denial, And The California Bar Exam (Dec. 20, 2016)
- Despite 'Horrific' 51% Bar Passage Rate, New UC-Hastings Dean Says School Is Poised To 'Catapult Into National Preeminence' Using NYU As A Model (Dec. 21, 2016)
- California Law School Bar Pass Rates Recalculated For New York: Stanford, UCB, USC > NYU; UCI, UCLA > Columbia; Chapman, Loyola, McGeorge, Pepperdine, Santa Clara, UCD, USD > Fordham (Dec. 22, 2016)
- More On The July 2016 California Bar Exam (Dec. 26, 2016)
- California’s New Bar Exam Format And ABA’s Proposed 75% Bar Passage Requirement Will Adversely Impact Diversity, Women, And Access To The Legal Profession (Jan. 30, 2017)
- Deans Of 20 Of California's 21 ABA-Accredited Law Schools Ask State Supreme Court To Lower Bar Exam Pass Score (Feb. 2, 2017)
- ABA 'Overwhelmingly' Rejects 75% Bar Passage Requirement (Feb. 7, 2017)
- California Law Deans Take Bar Exam Complaints To Lawmakers; State Bar Director Admits There Is 'No Good Answer' For High MBE Pass Score (Feb. 15, 2017)
- Beyond The Cut Score: Piercing The Veil Of The California Bar Exam's Validity (Mar. 2, 2017)
- Lawmakers Ask Calif. Chief Justice To Cut State Bar Exam Score (Mar. 9, 2017)
- UC-Hastings Dean: The California Bar Exam Flunks Too Many Law School Graduates (Mar. 27, 2017)
- Anderson, Merritt & Muller Debate: Is The Bar Exam Broken? (May 30, 2017)
- Deans Push To Lower California Bar Pass Score, But Lawyers With Lower Scores Are More Likely To Be Disciplined Or Disbarred (May 31, 2017)
- Anderson, Merritt & Muller On The Push To Lower California's Bar Pass Score (June 4, 2017)
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/07/california-supreme-court-strips-bar-examiners-of-its-authority-to-set-cut-score-lower-cut-score-may-.html
Comments
I think you meant to sign that "Rational correlation," as in "law school deans only started complaining about the difficulty of the bar exam after they radically dropped their admissions standards so as to keep their doors open."
Posted by: Unemployed Northeastern | Jul 14, 2017 6:26:31 AM
The California bar examiners just had to demonstrate a rational basis for their unusually high cut score that was not related to artificially driving down the number of California licensed lawyers.
That's not a high hurdle to meet, but they couldn't do it.
I don't think anyone seriously believes legal practice in California is more sophisticated and complex than in New York or D.C. or Boston or Chicago. No reason Cali should have a harder bar exam than everyone else.
Posted by: Rational basis | Jul 13, 2017 9:31:41 PM
Pathetic. As if lowering the standard for the bar exam will
1) create more demand for law school graduates
2) make legal services more affordable, or
3) hold bar complaints level, given the recent studies correlating lower bar exam pass rates with higher incidences for such things.
But one cannot change the larger forces at work: law school applicants are still way down, the "smart money" (LSAT > 160) is particularly staying away, PSLF is probably doomed, Trump wants grads student loans on a 30-year payback at 12.5% of income per year (and not just disposable income like IBR and PAYE), and last but not least, it's becoming clearer that GradPLUS will be targeted when the HEA is reauthorized in the near future. Law schools still have a lot of pain ahead.
Posted by: Unemployed Northeastern | Jul 12, 2017 9:56:20 AM
The legal academy's war against standards continues to rack up victories. What does the future hold? No bar exam, no LSAT requirement, no four year undergraduate degree requirement. Just the ability to sign for loans.
Now lets take a look at the gatekeeping in the medical profession, which law was once (but will never be again) compared to:
George Washington Med: USNews Rank 59/ Total Enrollment 725/ Acceptance Rate 2.6%
Posted by: JM | Jul 12, 2017 6:28:56 AM
"Standard" or cartel? Please show me any research showing that a cut score of 144 as opposed to the national average results in better legal services in California?
Posted by: anon | Jul 15, 2017 4:44:15 PM