[ABA] Council enacts new bar passage standard for law schools — from americanbar.org

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

On May 17, the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar approved a major change in the bar passage standard, known as 316, that would require 75 percent of a law school’s graduates who sit for the bar to pass it within two years. The change takes effect immediately although schools falling short of the standard would have at least two years to come into compliance.

Twice since 2017, the ABA policy-making House of Delegates has voted against the change, as some delegates feared it would have an adverse effect on law schools with significant minority enrollment. But under ABA rules and procedures, the Council, which is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the national accreditor of law schools, has the final say on accreditation matters.

 

Also see:

  • ABA’s Tougher Bar Pass Rule for Law Schools Applauded, Derided — from law.com by Karen Sloan
    The American Bar Association’s new standard could increase pressure on jurisdictions like California with high cut scores to lower that threshold. It could also add momentum to the burgeoning movement to overhaul the bar exam itself.

“Either the ABA Council simply ignored the clear empirical evidence that the new bar standard will decrease diversity in the bar, or it passed the new standard with the hope that states, like California, that have unreasonably high bar cut scores will lower those metrics in order to ameliorate the council’s action,” Patton said.

 

At that January meeting, former ABA President Paulette Brown, the first African-American woman to hold that position, called the proposed change “draconian.”

“I know and understand fully that the [ABA] council has the right to ignore what we say,” she said. “That does not absolve us of our responsibility to give them a very clear and strong message that we will not idly stand by while they decimate the diversity in the legal profession.”