Bar passage rates fall at both Md. schools

The passage rate for the July bar exam dropped six percentage points this year in Maryland, and both the state’s law schools saw a smaller portion of their graduates pass the test.

About 72 percent of Maryland test-takers passed the exam this summer, compared to 78 percent in July 2013, according to the State Board of Law Examiners.

July Bar Exam Passage Rates

Source: State Board of Law Examiners

The University of Baltimore School of Law and the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law fared slightly better than the average: 73 percent of UB Law grads who took the exam passed, along with 75 percent of UM Carey Law grads.

But those rates, too, were down from the previous year, as were the percentages of first-time test-takers who passed at both law schools.

The drop was most dramatic at UB Law, where the passage rate fell 10 percentage points from 83 percent in July 2013. The rate for first-time test-takers, which had been 86 percent in July 2013, dropped to 78 percent this July.

The double-digit drop also put UB Law’s July passage rate behind UM Carey Law’s for the first time since 2011. At UM Carey Law, 75 percent of graduates who took the exam passed, including 79 percent of first-timers.

But UM Carey Law’s passage rates were still well short of July 2013, when the school saw 79.6 percent pass the exam, and 85 percent of first-time test-takers succeeded.

Jeffrey C. Shipley, secretary of the State Board of Law Examiners, noted that the drop in Maryland’s pass rates is likely attributable in part to lower scores nationwide on the July Multistate Bar Exam, which counts for one-third of Maryland test-takers’ total exam score.

Although the National Conference of Bar Examiners has not yet published the national mean MBE score for the July 2014 exam on its website, the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners is reporting a national mean scaled score of 141.47 — which would be the lowest since July 2004.

“The most significant factor is that the Multistate Bar Exam was graded more stringently this year,” said Ronald Weich, dean of UB Law.

Maryland is not the only state that saw lower overall passage rates for July’s exam — in Texas, Virginia and others, pass rates also decreased significantly.

Members of the Maryland law schools’ Class of 2014 also appear to be more academically qualified than the Class of 2013, making the decline in passage rates all the more unexpected. Most, but not all, of the class of 2014 was made up of students who began law school in 2011, and both schools recorded an increase in median LSAT scores that year.

At UB Law, the median score went from 155 in 2010 to 156 in 2011, and at UM Carey Law, the median score also increased by one point, from 161 in 2010 to 162 in 2011.

Weich said he isn’t worried about the UB Law’s passage rate dipping below UM Carey Law’s, calling the two-point difference between the two schools “statistically insignificant” — especially since his graduates fared better than the state average.

“That’s an important indicator of a law school’s effectiveness,” he said. “We’re always working to improve our pass rate. It’s an important outcome measure that we take seriously, and we’ll continue to work to make sure our students are well prepared.”

Dean Donald Tobin, who took the helm of UM Carey Law in July, also said his focus is on maximizing the number of UM Carey Law students who pass the bar, not comparing the school’s performance to that of other law schools.

Because some students are natural test-takers while others may struggle under pressure, Tobin said, the school needs to provide resources to accommodate the needs of students with different abilities.

“My general philosophy in these areas is that you need to provide increased assistance to students, with regard to both test-taking techniques and information about the exam, but also helping them get more practice than might happen in a bar review course,” Tobin said.