2 3 4 1
Id. Id
Dannye Holley & Thomas Kleven, Minorities and the Legal Profession: Current Platitudes, Current Barriers, 12 T. MARSHALL L. REV. 299, 332 (1987).
published in 1998, also reflected a lower bar passage rate for minority group participants.5 Studies have shown a correlation between low LSAT scores and bar passage rates.6 At the January 2001 AALS conference, law school faculty and administrators indicated that many, but not all, students failing the bar come from the lowest academic quartile of the student body, suggesting a correlation between grades and bar passage rates.7 Other anecdotal evidence suggests that students who work, have family obligations, or learning issues also may be at risk.8 Finally, evidence indicates that those who take a bar review course increase their chances of passing the bar. Thus, those students who are financially unable to take such courses have a greater chance of failing than those who do.9 As a result of this phenomenon, the Committee decided to investigate whether these changes were having an effect on law school programs. The importance of bar passage rates to law schools may seem obvious to many people. Nonetheless, the Committee first discussed whether law schools should be concerned with bar passage rates. The Committee found many reasons to conclude that they should. Although some might question whether the bar examination is a good measure of either a person's ability to practice law or the success of a person's legal education, it remains a requirement for licensure. Thus, the profession's and the public's perception of both lawyers and law schools is in part dependent upon passing the bar. Schools whose students regularly fail the bar may lose credibility with the public or with the state or university board of directors that guarantee their existence. Law schools are designed as professional schools. As such, students who matriculate at a law school and graduate expect that they will be prepared to join the profession. While this expectation does not create a contractual obligation, the admission of a student carries a moral obligation on the part of a school to prepare him or her for a career as a lawyer. Failure of the graduate to pass the bar may be taken to indicate that the school has failed to meet that obligation. Most importantly, our fiduciary relationship with our students suggests that we have an obligation to maximize their chances for success. At the same time that this study was being completed, the AALS Executive Committee committed itself to engage in discussions with the American Bar Association Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the Law School Admissions Council and other relevant groups to address how applicants are examined for admission to the bar and how the pass scores are set. The purpose of these discussions will be to ensure that all See Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) National Longitudinal Bar Study (1998), Executive Summary, p. viii (eventual pass rate for White participants was 96.7%; eventual pass rate for all study participants of color was 84.7%). 6 Joan Howarth, Teaching in the Shadow of the Bar, 31 U.S.F. L. REV. 927, 928 (Summer 1997)(citing Cecil J. Hunt, II, Guests in Another's House: An Analysis of Racially Disparate Bar Performance, 23 FLA. ST. U. L. REV. 721, 766-67 (1996).

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