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Discussions with various members of the Association of American Law Schools, at the A.A.L.S. Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Cal. (Jan. 3-6, 2001).
W. Ray Williams, Hand-Up or Handout The Americans with Disabilities Act and "Unreasonable Accommodation" of Learning Disabled Bar Applicants: Toward a New Paradigm, 34 CREIGHTON L. REV. 611, 613-14 (2001).
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Mark Hyman, West Gives Bar/Bri Run for Bar-Review Market, BALTIMORE SUN, September 9, 1995, at 13C. 2
aspects of the important process of bas admission examination are considered and fully explored. Concerns have been raised that passage rates would not rise proportionately even if all law graduates were better prepared for the bar examination. As a related matter, many strongly advocate that it would be an error for law schools to form curricula to "teach to the bar." Ultimately, the latter concerns suggest that it is not enough to ask what more law schools could be doing better to prepare graduates for the bar examination without asking about other aspects of the process. Failure to pass the bar creates many adverse personal consequences for our graduates. Students who fail will not easily find employment. Studies have shown that employment is a major indicator of good physical and mental health.10 The sense of personal and professional failure and the financial insecurity that comes from failing the bar can be devastating. Given the ever increasing educational debt carried by our students, these feelings of failure can only be intensified by the specter of financial liability. Even if a graduate passes a subsequent examination, the delay in beginning a career may slow down or permanently affect a graduate's personal and professional development. In addition, the resulting anger may be turned against the school, thus depriving it of a valuable alumnus or alumna in the future. With all this in mind, the Committee concluded that law schools must be concerned with bar passage rates. In order to determine how law schools were reacting to bar passage rates, the Committee designed a questionnaire to study current practices. The Committee was interested in whether law schools alone or in cooperation with local or state bar associations offered bar preparation courses or other programs to supplement existing commercial bar review courses. The Committee also sought data to determine whether any of the offered courses or programs were effective. Our goal was to collect this information and to alert schools about the range of courses and programs offered to assist graduates preparing for the bar examination. Schools electing to provide such assistance would thus have a body of information from which to begin their planning. During the Fall of 1999, survey questionnaires were sent to the deans of the 182 AALS member and fee-paid law schools. A second request for responses was made in the Spring of 2000. One hundred eight (108; 59.3%) of the schools returned completed questionnaires. The survey included two parts. The first part asked general questions about the programs and courses that law schools offered to their graduates and about any improvements in bar passage rates that had come about in recent years. The second part asked for information about specific programs. Richard A. White, a consultant for the A.A.L.S., completed the statistical analysis of the survey results included here. We have organized this report to highlight the findings that we believe will be most helpful to law schools. Part II-A consists of the 6 questions in the survey and either the statistical analysis of the answers and/or a narrative compilation of the responses. Part II-B contains the responses of law schools that shared information on specific activities, programs and courses designed to assist in bar passage. Appendix A contains the available bar preparation courses listed by each of the respondents that are not sponsored by the law school. They are arranged by law school and include the cost and "targeted group" if stated. Appendix B contains attachments describing 31 of the programs provided by the law schools in their responses to the survey. The appendices are available from the AALS national office upon request.

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