The Impact Of 1L Credentials And Academic Attrition Rates On Bar Exam Success

Rory D. Bahadur (Washburn) & Kevin Ruth (PhD Mathematics, Miami), Quantifying the Impact of Matriculant Credentials & Academic Attrition Rates on Bar Exam Success at Individual Schools, 99 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. Online 1 (Oct. 2021):

A scatterplot displaying bar passage rates vs. academic attrition, across all law schools, suggests that bar passage rates and academic attrition rates are not positively correlated, and may even be slightly negatively correlated. This means that according to the data in the scatterplot there appears to be a slight trend where the higher an institution’s academic attrition rate, the lower the bar passage rate. Such global statistical observations obfuscate the true relationship between attrition and bar passage at individual schools.

Academic attrition rates have a significant positive impact on an individual school’s bar passage rate. There are confounding variables which prevent us from seeing the true relationship between academic attrition and bar passage rates in the global scatterplot. This brief article quantifies the impact of academic attrition on bar passage for individual schools. We tangibly demonstrate the impact of academic attrition and matriculant credentials on bar passage at individual schools.

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), July 2021 Florida Bar Exam Results: Florida International Is #1 For 7th Year In A Row (Sept. 21, 2021)
• Rory D. Bahadur (Washburn) & Kevin Ruth, Academic Attrition And Transfers, Not Pedagogy, Drive A Law School's Bar Exam Performance (Feb. 15, 2021)
• Jeffrey Kinsler (Belmont), The Best Law Schools For Passing The Bar Exam (Feb. 1, 2021)
• National Jurist, A New Study Identifies Law Schools Whose Graduates Overperform And Underperform On The Bar Exam (Feb. 1, 2021)
• Rory D. Bahadur (Washburn), Attrition And Bar Performance (Sept. 14, 2020)
• Rory D. Bahadur (Washburn),  High 1L Attrition And 2L Transfer Rates Contribute To Florida International's Over Performance On The Bar Exam (Aug. 31, 2020)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law School Rankings By Ultimate Bar Passage Rates (Feb. 20, 2020)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law School Rankings By Bar Exam Overperformance (Feb. 19, 2020)
• National Jurist, Florida International Law School: An Unexpected Bar Passage Leader (Jan. 31, 2020)
• Karen Sloan (Law.com), Five Law Schools With Top Bar Pass Rates Share Their Secrets (Nov. 8, 2019)
• Louis N. Schulze (Florida International), The Science of Learning Law: Academic Support Measures at Florida International University College of Law (Oct. 24, 2019)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), July 2019 Florida Bar Exam Results: Florida International Is #1 For 5th Year In A Row (Sept. 16, 2019)
• Jeffrey Kinsler (Belmont) & Jeffrey Usman (Belmont), Law Schools, Bar Passage, and Under and Over-Performing Expectations (Nov. 1, 2018)