California Bar Exam Pass Rate Falls To 51.5%, Bucking Upward National Trend

The California Bar has released the results of the July 2023 bar exam. The overall pass rate was 51.5%, down 0.9 percentage point from last year's exam. For California ABA-accredited law schools, the pass rate for first time test-takers was 76%, up 3 percentage points from 2022.

School Type	First-Timers	Repeaters
California ABA	76.3%	36.7%
Out-of-State ABA	69.9%	27.0%
CA Accredited (Not ABA)	33.2%	15.7%
Unaccredited - Correspondence	40.0%	18.8%
Unaccredited - Distance Learning	17.4%	13.3%
Unaccredited - Fixed-Facility	14.3%	4.8%
All Others	25.0%	20.6%
All Applicants	64.8%	24.1%

The State Bar of California reported today that 51.5 percent of applicants passed the July 2023 General Bar Examination (GBX). As a result, the 3,888 people who passed the July exam will be eligible for admission to the State Bar as soon as all admissions requirements are satisfied. ...

California’s General Bar Exam pass rate of 51.5 percent represented a slight drop from last year’s July pass rate of 52.4 percent. Preliminary statistical analyses show that of the 7,555 applicants who completed the GBX, 67.3 percent were first-time takers. The pass rate for these 5,083 first-time applicants was 64.8 percent. The pass rate for the 2,472 applicants repeating the exam was 24.1 percent. 

• Daily Report, Pass Rate on California's July Bar Exam Dips Slightly to 51.5%
• Reuters, California’s Bar Pass Rate Dipped to 51.5%, Bucking Upward National Trend