Bahadur: Attrition And Bar Performance

TaxProf Blog op-ed:  Attrition and Bar Performance, by Rory Bahadur (Washburn):

Recently I was made aware of an incredibly well researched article by Jeffrey Kinsler [The Best Law Schools for Passing the Bar Exam].  The article predicted bar outcomes based on incoming credentials and listed the 15 schools that overperformed their incoming credentials the most and the fifteen schools that underperformed the most on the bar based on incoming credentials. 

The article identified the 15 top overperforming schools as

Rank	The Top 15 Law Schools for Bar Passage
1	Belmont
2	Florida International
3	Liberty
4	Campbell
5	Texas A&M
6	Duquesne
7	LSU
8	Georgia State
9	Texas Tech
10	New Hampshire
11	Regent
12	South Carolina
13	Seton Hall
14	Cleveland State
15	Oklahoma

And it identified the 15 most underperforming schools as

Rank	The Bottom 15 Law Schools for Bar Passage
173	Touro
174	Minnesota
175	Northwestern
176	John Marshall (Atlanta)
177	New York Law School
178	UC-Hastings
179	Emory
180	Thomas Cooley
181	SUNY-Buffalo
182	American
183	Hofstra
184	Southwestern
185	Golden Gate
186	District of Columbia
187	San Francisco

The article suggests reasons for why these schools fall where they do but I thought it would be interesting based on my current research in this area to compare 1L attrition rates for these schools.  I very quickly used two on-line sources for the comparison.  I used this site to ascertain 1L attrition rates for law schools and this site to ascertain the seven-year average national 1L attrition rates for schools in different LSAT ranges.  The findings are laid out in the following tables that are modified from the article by Kinsler.

For the top 15 schools the data looks like this and it indicates the average 1L attrition rate for these schools is almost twice as high as the national average rate of 1L attrition for schools with similar LSAT entering credentials.

Rank	The Top 15 Law Schools for Bar Passage	1L Attrition Rate (%)	Median LSAT Band	7 Year Average 1L Attrition for Schools in Same LSAT Band(%)
1	Belmont	9.82	155-159	4.8
2	Florida Int'l	16.11	155-159	4.8
3	Liberty	20.55	150-154	9.0
4	Campbell	11.8	150-154	9.0
5	Texas A&M	9.42	155-159	4.8
6	Duquesne	10.81	155-159	4.8
7	LSU	5.59	155-159	4.8
8	Georgia State	11.05	155-159	4.8
9	Texas Tech	12.95	155-159	4.8
10	New Hampshire	8.11	155-159	4.8
11	Regent	12.9	150-154	9.0
12	South Carolina	4.65	155-159	4.8
13	Seton Hall	8.12	155-159	4.8
14	Cleveland State	8.33	150-154	9.0
15	Oklahoma	2.52	155-159	4.8
Average 1L Attrition % Compared To National Average		10.28		5.9

For the bottom 15 schools for bar passage the data is as follows:

Rank	The Bottom 15 Law Schools for Bar Passage	1L Attrition Rate (%)	Median LSAT Band	7 Year Average 1L Attrition for Schools in Same LSAT Band (%)
173	Touro	14.69	<150	14.8
174	Minnesota	1.53	160 +	2.0
175	Northwestern	0	160 +	2.0
176	John Marshall (Atlanta)	19.44	< 150	14.8
177	New York Law School	13.26	150-154	9.0
178	UC-Hastings	3.99	155-159	4.8
179	Emory	2.1	160 +	2.0
180	Thomas Cooley	13.97	<150	14.8
181	SUNY-Buffalo	2.78	150-154	9.0
182	American	.72	155-159	4.8
183	Hofstra	6.8	150-154	9.0
184	Southwestern	17.27	150-154	9.0
185	Golden Gate	15.05	150-154	9.0
186	District of Columbia	11.83	<150	14.8
187	San Francisco	23.78	150-154	9.0
Average 1L Attrition % Compared to National Average		9.81		8.59

For the lower performing schools identified by Kinsler the 1L average attrition rate was very similar to the national 1L average attrition rate.  In fact, in 9 out of the 15 schools the 1L attrition rate was lower than the national average for schools in similar LSAT bands.  Those schools are identified in yellow in the table above.

Just today, a colleague at another school agreed to help with a more detailed and accurate empirical study on these data and a large well-funded entity with a trove of statisticians today agreed to lend us a helping hand.

The aim will be to scour the actual ABA 509 forms rather than on-line sources and compare not just attrition rates to bar passage performance but to specifically compare academic attrition rates at these law schools to their relative over or under performance on bar passage performance.

As soon as the research is complete, we will share the data.