Law School Rankings By Ultimate Bar Passage Rates

The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has released comprehensive data on bar passage outcomes for ABA-accredited law schools:

The new data shows that in the aggregate, 89.99% of 2018 law graduates who sat for a bar exam passed it within two years of graduation (90.10% with Diploma Privilege). The two-year “ultimate” aggregate success rate is slightly better than the 89.47% comparable figure for 2017 graduates. The 2018 ultimate bar pass data also reveals that 94.98% of all graduates sat for a bar exam within two years of graduation, and that schools were able to obtain bar passage information from 98.84% of 2018 graduates.

First-time takers in 2020 achieved an aggregate 82.83% pass rate (83.66% with Diploma Privilege), which is a 3-percentage point increase over the comparable 79.64% pass rate for 2019. Diploma Privilege considers those waived into the practice of law without taking the bar because of special rules during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three law schools have a perfect 100% 2-year ultimate bar passage rate: Belmont, University of Chicago, and University of Washington. Here are the 107 law schools with ultimate bar passage rates of 90% or more (not including diploma privilege) (the full data for all 197 law schools is here):

1	Belmont	100.00%
1	Chicago	100.00%
1	Univ. of Washington	100.00%
4	Boston Univ.	99.55%
5	Cornell	99.49%
6	Pennsylvania	99.16%
7	Yale	99.04%
8	Virginia	98.99%
9	Stanford	98.91%
10	NYU	98.89%
11	Vanderbilt	98.86%
12	Florida Int'l	98.47%
13	UC-Berkeley	98.34%
14	Duke	98.14%
15	Harvard	97.86%
16	William & Mary	97.80%
17	Liberty	97.62%
18	Pittsburgh	97.56%
19	St. Louis	97.44%
20	Michigan	97.27%
21	North Carolina	97.24%
22	Minnesota	97.21%
23	George Washington	97.19%
24	Kentucky	97.12%
25	Columbia	97.07%
26	Texas	97.06%
27	Florida State	97.04%
28	Cardozo	97.03%
29	Georgia State	97.01%
30	St. John's	96.88%
31	Seton Hall	96.82%
32	BYU	96.72%
33	Toledo	96.49%
34	Oregon	96.46%
35	Oklahoma	96.32%
36	Fordham	96.29%
37	UCLA	96.25%
38	Samford	96.06%
39	Notre Dame	96.02%
40	Hawaii	96.00%
41	Texas Tech	95.92%
42	St. Thomas (MN)	95.88%
43	Utah	95.79%
44	SMU	95.73%
45	Washington Univ.	95.52%
46	Boston College	95.50%
47	Georgetown	95.47%
48	UC-Davis	95.35%
49	Colorado	95.29%
50	Georgia	95.24%
51	Illinois	95.17%
52	Ohio State	94.94%
53	Louisiana State	94.90%
53	New Mexico	94.90%
55	Texas A&M	94.78%
56	Alabama	94.74%
57	San Diego	94.59%
57	Washington & Lee	94.59%
59	Arizona State	94.55%
60	Campbell	94.53%
61	Missouri-Columbia	94.38%
61	South Texas	94.38%
63	New Hampshire	94.37%
64	Villanova	94.27%
65	Northeastern	94.16%
66	Syracuse	94.08%
67	Penn State-Univ. Park	94.07%
68	Cleveland State	93.90%
69	Nebraska	93.81%
70	Temple	93.63%
71	Oklahoma City	93.62%
72	South Carolina	93.58%
73	Penn State-Dickinson	93.55%
74	Duquesne	93.33%
75	Loyola-L.A.	93.26%
76	Regent	93.22%
77	Pepperdine	93.21%
78	Miami	93.13%
79	Tulsa	93.10%
80	George Mason	93.06%
81	USC	92.82%
82	Tennessee	92.79%
83	Houston	92.76%
84	Northwestern	92.56%
85	Maryland	92.46%
86	Florida	92.45%
87	Kansas	92.31%
88	UC-Irvine	92.04%
89	Massachusetts	91.84%
90	Richmond	91.76%
90	Loyola-Chicago	91.76%
92	Gonzaga	91.67%
93	Connecticut	91.46%
94	Baylor	91.23%
95	Washburn	91.21%
96	Lincoln Memorial	91.07%
97	Chapman	91.04%
98	Chicago-Kent	90.82%
99	Quinnipiac	90.59%
100	Indiana-Bloom.	90.54%
101	Louisville	90.38%
102	Santa Clara	90.32%
103	Case Western	90.27%
104	Brooklyn	90.22%
105	Maine	90.00%
105	Wake Forest	90.00%
105	Widener (PA)	90.00%

Ten law schools have pass rates below the 75% rate (including diploma privilege) in ABA accreditation standard 316, which requires a bar passage rate of at least 75% within two years of graduation:

188	Charleston	74.19%
189	Mississippi College	73.83%
190	Dayton	73.33%
191	Barry	67.26%
192	Western New England	64.79%
193	San Francisco	63.13%
194	Western Michigan	62.31%
195	Golden Gate	57.50%
196	Inter American (PR)	55.43%
197	Pontifical Catholic (PR)	52.08%

• ABA Journal, Data Shows Increase in Both First-Time and 2-Year Bar Exam Pass Rates
• Karen Sloan (Law.com), Despite Pandemic Challenges, 2020's National Bar Pass Rate Improved, With Harvard and Yale in the Lead