New ABA Bar Data: Ultimate 2-Year Pass Rate Increased 1 Percentage Point; 6 Law Schools Fell Short of 75% Accreditation Threshold

Press Release, ABA Section of Legal Education Releases Comprehensive Report on Bar Passage Data:

The Managing Director’s Office of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar released today a comprehensive set of data on bar passage outcomes for American Bar Association-approved law schools. Spreadsheets are available on the section’s webpage under Legal Education Statistics, which report these outcomes under ABA Required Disclosures on a school-by-school basis and in more detail.

In addition to the numbers on bar passage, the data incorporates those who become licensed to practice law by alternative pathways. These graduates are admitted to the practice of law and are considered bar passers without sitting for a bar examination.

The new data shows that in the aggregate, 90.40% of 2021 law graduates who sat for a bar exam passed it within two years of graduation (90.53% with alternative pathways). The two-year “ultimate” aggregate success rate is lower than the 91.85% comparable figure for 2020 graduates. 

Six law schools fell short of the 75% accreditation threshold:

School Name	Pass %
Cooley Law School	55.87%
District of Columbia	57.14%
Pontifical Catholic University of P.R.	63.33%
Inter American University of Puerto Rico	65.84%
Western State College of Law	68.42%
Southern University	72.15%

The information released today includes charts that include aggregate data in different ethnicity categories for information collected in 2023 and 2024 broken down by gender.

• ABA Journal, New Bar-Passage Stats Show Several Law Schools Below ABA Cutoff
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