New York bar pass rates at their lowest point in at least 11 years
Image from Shutterstock.
Bar pass rates in New York state have fallen to their lowest point in at least 11 years, new figures show.
Only 70 percent of first-time test takers passed the July administration of the state bar exam, according to figures (PDF) released Tuesday by the New York State Board of Law Examiners.
The bar pass rate for all test-takers was even worse. Only 61 percent of all those who took the exam, including first-time and repeat test-takers, passed, the figures show.
Graduates of ABA-accredited law schools fared better: 79 percent of first-time test takers passed, while 73 percent of all test-takers did.
Pass rates were down 4 percent across the board from the year before, and were at their lowest point since at least 2004, Above the Law reports, posting statistics going back to that year.
The number of examinees who sat for the July test—10,671—was also the lowest since 2006, according to the state bar board.
Some may blame the decline in pass rates on the record number of foreign-educated examinees—3,154—who sat for the bar in July, Above the Law says. Only 33 percent of those test-takers passed. But while those results may have dragged down the overall averages, they don’t account for them all.
A solution to the problem, Above the Law blogger Staci Zaretsky says, is simple. “Law schools need to stop scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to admitting students to fill their otherwise empty seats.”
