Archive for the ‘Bar Exam’ Category

Changing Demographics of Historically Black Law Schools

Sunday, March 27th, 2011
Florida A&M, Howard University, North Carolina Central, Southern, and Texas Southern were all formed, as early as 1869 (Howard), but largely in the 1940’s, with the primary mission of educating Black/African American lawyers. With those roots, one might expect that their student bodies would still be predominately Black/African American. But, as Bob Dylan once sang, “the times they are a changin’.”


As shown in the above table, over the three most recent academic years for which information has been published in the Official Guide, at Atlanta’s John Marshall, White/Caucasian students predominate, with Black/African-American students just over a fifth of the class. At the University of the District of Columbia, White/Caucasian students have constituted a plurality of the entering classes. During that period, at three of the remaining schools, Florida A&M, North Carolina Central, and Texas Southern, Black/African-American students constituted at least a plurality of entering students, with the last two hovering near 50% of the class. Only Howard and Southern remain strongly Black/African American institutions. During that period, at five of the schools, White/Caucasian students have a substantial presence—at least 35%. At Texas Southern, the second-largest component of entering classes has been Hispanic students. Only at Howard is predominantly Black/African-American, with no strong presence of any of the other ethnic groups.
As recently as 1998, Black/African-American students made up 68.3% of the entering class at the University of the District of Columbia (DC). Beginning with the next entering class, the Black/African-American share of the class began falling, and reached a low of 25.0% for the 2005 class. What happened after 1998? According to the Official Guide, DC was accredited in 1991, so it would have been due for a sabbatical inspection around 1998.
Professor John Nussbaumer argues that the ABA uses its initial and periodic accreditation reviews to pressure law schools to raise the LSAT scores of the low end of their entering classes. John Nussbaumer, The Disturbing Correlation between ABA Accreditation Review and Declining African-American Law School Enrollment, 80 ST. JOHN’S L. REV. 991 (2006) (“Disturbing Correlation”);  John Nussbaumer, Misuse of the Law School Admissions Test, Racial Discrimination, and the De Facto Quota System for Restricting African-American Access to the Legal Profession, 80 ST. JOHN’S L. REV. 167, 178-79 (2006) (“Restricting Access”). As shown in the following chart, decreases in the Black/African-American share of entering classes are largely mirrored by increases in the 25th percentile of the LSAT scores of the entering classes:

Although the ABA began including in the Official Guide data on entering classes of Atlanta’s John Marshall as of its Fall 2007 class, it is likely that John Marshall is the “School X” described in “Case Study One” discussed by Professor Nussbaumer in Disturbing Trend, 80 ST. JOHN’S L. REV. at 178. First, it “is located in a major metropolitan area with a large minority and African-American population.”  Second, it “seeks to provide non¬traditional students with access to the legal profession.”   Third, Prof. Nussbaumer says that School X was “recently” given full ABA approval.  Disturbing Trends was published in 2006, in the first issue of volume 80; Atlanta’s John Marshall was fully accredited in 2005.
In any event, School X also underwent a radical demographic transformation. Between 1999 and 2004, it raised the LSAT 25th percentile of entering classes from 138 to 148. Concurrently with that increase, total minority enrollment fell from 74% to 46% (i.e., it became a majority White/Caucasian school), and Black/African-American enrollment fell from 62% to 32%. Id. at 178 & 181-F, tbl. 9.
By the time the law school at Florida A&M was reorganized after a hiatus of over thirty years, and the ABA began publishing information on its entering classes, it was already only a plurality Black/African-American institution.
The ABA may not have a so-called “floor” on the LSAT scores of admitted applicants. We do know that the ABA has used Bar passage rates to measure not only compliance with Standard 301 (adequacy of program of legal education), but also Standard 501(b):
A law school shall not admit applicants who do not appear capable of satisfactorily completing its educational program and being admitted to the bar.
2010-2011 Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools, Standard 501(b) (emphasis added). Even before the adoption of Interpretation 301–6, the ABA’s Accreditation Committee had been using a standard for first-time Bar passage of below 70% and more than 10 points below the state average for ABA-accredited schools Bar passage standards no being proposed are the standards that the ABA had been using. See, e.g., Memorandum from Greg Murphy, Chair, Accreditation Committee, to Richard Morgan, Chair, Standards Review Committee, on Interpretation 301–6,at 1 (May 2, 2007) (“Murphy Memorandum”)(copy on file with author).
The Murphy Memorandum also indicates that the Accreditation Committee also was relying on cumulative (ultimate) Bar passage rates, but does not indicate the minimum used by that committee.  However, when the Standards Review Committee first proposed the use of difference scores and cumulative Bar passage rates, it proposed a 10% difference score and an 80% cumulative Bar passage rates. Memorandum from Richard L. Morgan, Chair and Hulett H. Askew, Consultant, to Standards Review Committee, regarding Wednesday, May 17, 2007 Hearing and Meeting (May 16, 2007). Given that the 10% difference score was the standard being used by the Accreditation Committee, it suggests that the 80% cumulative rate may also have been the standard that that committee was then using.
Given the links between both first-time and cumulative Bar passage rates and group LSAT scores, quickly increasing a law school’s Bar passage rates means quickly increasing the LSAT scores of its entering classes. The widespread increases in the LSAT 25th percentiles at historically Black law schools, and the associated decreases in the share of Black/African-enrollment, are probably associated with the use of the very Bar passage standards which are again being proposed.
Posted by Gary Rosin

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The LSAT and Historically Black Law Schools

Friday, March 25th, 2011

In recent years, there has been great concern about law schools relying too heavily on LSAT scores in admissions.  The argument is that LSAT scores are at best an imperfect predictor of the academic success of individual law students, as measured by first-year GPAs.  Moreover, academic success, is an even more imperfect predictor of success as a practicing lawyer.  That said, the LSAT is more reliable when it comes to the predicting the success of groups, including Bar passage rates.  For example, consider Chart 1, based on the data used in the LSAC Bar Passage Study, which shows the cumulative Bar passage rates over multiple attempts of persons with the same LSAT score:

Chart 1 

Note:  at the time of the LSAC Bar Passage Study (the entering class of Fall 1991), LSAT scores were reported on a scale that ranged from 10 to 48, rather than the current 120-180 scale.

Perhaps the most notable feature of the curve shown in Chart 1 is that a one-unit difference in LSAT (e.g., 35 vs. 36) has a larger effect on cumulative Bar passage as LSAT drops—the curve is much steeper at an LSAT of 19 that it is at an LSAT of 40.  This phenomenon is important in crafting an entering class, which will include persons with a range of different LSATs.  The ramifications of the phenomenon loom especially large for law schools with lower LSAT medians and 25th and 75th percentiles. 

And there’s the rub:  many of the historically Black law schools have entering-student LSAT scores at or near the bottom of those of all mainland law schools (i.e., excluding Puerto Rica and Hawaii).  For example, over the Fall 2006 through Fall 2009 entering classes, the average of the LSAT 25th percentile for each school averaged 154.7, with a standard deviation of 5.68.  The bottom four ABA law schools were Florida A&M, Southern, North Carolina Central and Texas Southern, while District of Columbia, Atlanta’s John Marshall  and Howard were grouped around the 15th percentile.

                             

While each school is required to report recent cumulative Bar passage rates to the ABA, that information is neither published in the ABA-LSAC Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools (as of the 2011 edition), nor distributed to all ABA law schools via the annual “ABA take-offs.”  As a result, there is no data from which to perform a study along the line of that reported in my article, Unpacking the Bar:  Of Cut Scores and Competence, 32 J. Legal Prof. 67 (2008) (SSRN Absttract No. 988429), for first-time Bar passage rates.  While the shape of the resulting logistic “S” curve is unknown, the effect of a one-point change in law-school LSAT on law-school cumulative Bar passage rates will be much larger at the low end of law-school LSATs than it is at the high end, which means that the historically Black law schools will be at much greater risk of being affected by raising the minimum “ultimate” (cumulative) standard in 301–6 from 75% to 80%.

Posted by Gary Rosin

Posted in ABA, Admission, Bar Exam, Commentary, Empirical Studies, Law Schools, LSAT | No Comments »

ABA Revisiting Minimum Bar Passage Standards for Law Schools

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

There’s a lot of discussion about proposals before the Standards Review Committee of the ABA Section on Legal Education to make use of the LSAT optional, or to change the requirements as to tenure (see, e.g., Masters Forum:  Legal Education over at the Glom). 

In The Standards Review Committee’s Comprehensive Review of Accreditation Policy Moves Forward (Syllabus,Winter 2011), Dean Donald J. Polden (Santa Clara), Chair of the Standards Review Committee, outlines the agenda of that committee’s upcoming meeting on April 2 & 3, 2011.  The last item Polden lists is:

Reconsidering the (relatively new) policy concerning minimum or threshold bar passage rates and addressing the perception that the thresholds established by the policy are too low.

(Emphasis added).  The committee has now posted a Report of Subcommittee on Bar Passage that proposes to amend Interpretation 301-6 of Standard 301(a).  Standard 301(a) provides:

A law school shall maintain an educational program that prepares its students for admission to the bar, and effective and responsible participation in the legal profession.

Interpretation 301-6 provides that a law school must meet minimum Bar-passage requirements to comply with Standard 301(a).  A school can meet the requirements based on either

  • overall first-time Bar passage rates no more than 15 percentage points below the blended average Bar passage rate for persons who graduated from ABA-accredited law schools, or
  • overall ultimate Bar passage rates (over several attempts) of at least 75%.

The Subcommittee on Bar Passage proposes to raise the minimum Bar-passage requirements to (i) no more than 10% below the average (first-time) or (ii) at least 80% (ultimate).  For a provisionally-accredited school seeking full approval, the subcommittee proposes a version of the current 15% below (first-time) or 75% (ultimate) minimums. 

When Interpretation 301-6 was originally proposed and adopted, it was widely criticized, including my own Benchmarking the Bar:  No Unity in Difference Scores (differences from state averages do not eliminate effect of differences in minimum passing scores) and Reports and Comments on Proposed ABA Interpretation 301-6.  In many ways, the sub-committee’s current proposal goes back to standards that were rejected in the initial adoption.  I’ll add more later.

posted by Gary Rosin

 

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Flat Demand and More Law Schools

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

In Do We Need More Law Schools, I commented on the number of new law schools that have been in the works. In that post, I used the number of JDs granted per year, largely as a matter of convenience. But what about the demand for law school itself–the number of persons interested in going to law school. Several commenters suggested that the proper measure is the demand for lawyers, especially by firms that employ lawyers. While employment opportunities, and starting salaries, are a major factor affecting the demand for legal education, it is not the sole factor.   Whatever the underlying causes, the demand for legal education says something about the need for more law schools (as opposed to more lawyers).

ABA Law Schools, Applications and Admissions

The above chart uses information drawn from the current (as of October 2, 2009)  LSAC Volume Summary (under the “Data” section).  For the Fall 2000 entering classes, 74,600 persons applied, of which 50,300 (67%) were admitted.  For Fall 2008, 83,400 persons applied, of which 55,300 (67%) were admitted.  From Fall 2000 through Fall 2004, the number of applicants increased to 100,600, of which 55,900 (56%) were admitted.  From Fall 2004 through Fall 2008, the number of applicants fell by 17,200 persons (17%), but the number of persons admitted fell by 400 (less than one percent).  During that same period, the number of law schools increased by 9%, from 183 to 199.

But compare that with the number of applicants for Fall 1991 through Fall 1995 (estimated by combining data from the applications per applicant chart in the LSAC report, National Applicant Trends–2008, with Table 1 in Charles Longley, Law School Admissions, 1985 to 1995, Assessing the Effect of Application Volume (1998) (LSAC Research Report Series, No. RR-97-02)).  The estimated number of ABA applicants to fell from a high of 86,700 for Fall 1992 (176 schools) to 72,800 for Fall 1995 (179 schools).  Thus, since 1992, the number of applicants has fallen, risen, and fallen again, for a net loss of 3,300 persons (almost 4%), while the number of ABA law schools has increased by 22 schools (over 12%). 

Because Longley focused on ABA applications and admissions, rather than persons admitted, I do no not have the numbers of the number of persons admitted.  As shown in the ABA’s table, Enrollment, and Degrees Awarded, first-year enrollments have  seen some dips since Fall 1991 (44,050), but have increased to 49,414 in Fall 2008 (an increase of  12%).  That tracks the JDs awarded by ABA law schools (see the chart in Do We Need More Law Schools?). 

So we have more law schools chasing the same number of applicants, but enrolling more students.  I don’t think the increased competition  has hurt the elite law schools.  That means that the rest the law schools, particular those in U.S. News Tier 4, have more competition for students, and will have to dip deeper into the applicant pool.  For a law school, lower academic credentials tend to translate into lower Bar passage rates, especially in high cut-score states, such as California.

So, if you concluded from my earlier post that, as a professor at a Tier 4 school, I must be in favor of more law schools, you were wrong.  Apparently, the numbers do not speak for themselves, so let me be clear:

Flat Demand + More Law Schools = Trouble

That said, since Fall 2003, law schools have held the number of admitted applicants relatively flat, and even cut the numbers somewhat.  Yet enrollments have still gone up.  That’s because more of the admitted applicants are choosing to go to law school.  For Fall 2003, 48,900 out of 56,800 admitted persons (86%) actually enrolled, while, for Fall 2008, 49,414 out of 55,500 (89%) enrolled (LSAC Volume Summary).

Gary Rosin

Posted in ABA, Admission, Bar Exam, Commentary, Law Schools | 1 Comment »

What Happens to Bar ‘Never-Passers?”

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Jane Yakowitz (UCLA, Empirical Research Group) has posted on SSRN an interesting working paper, The Marooned Law School Graduates: An Empirical Investigation of Law School Graduates that Fail the Bar Exam, that looks at various sources with a view to establishing was happens to “never-passers”–law graduates who never pass the Bar exam.

Gary Rosin

Posted in Bar Exam, Law Schools | No Comments »