Passing the Bar Exam

Of the 7,255 people who took the California State Bar Exam last July, 54.9% passed and won the right to practice law. The pass rate was 69.2% among the 5,457 people taking the exam for the first time. The pass percentage traditionally is higher among first-timers than among the total group of applicants, which includes people who repeatedly fail the exam.

Among the statistics compiled by the State Bar of California are comparative pass-fail rates for graduates of California-accredited law schools. Shown below are results of the July exam, with schools ranked according to percentage of first-time applicants passing.

Also shown are the combined results for first-time applicants taking the 10 bar exams given over five years--from February, 1987, through July, 1991. Statewide, of 20,428 first-time bar applicants during that time, 14,400--or 70.49%--passed the test. Rankings of unaccredited and correspondence schools are not included. Schools listed in bold are in Los Angeles County.

STATE ACCREDITED, ABA-APPROVED SCHOOLS

FIRST-TIMERS JULY '91 SCHOOL TAKING EXAM % PASS Stanford University 94 91.5% UC Davis 130 90.8% Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley 216 89.8% UCLA 254 85.8% Univ. of the Pacific 276 80.4% (McGeorge), Sacramento Hastings, UC San Francisco 435 80.2% Loyola University, Los Angeles 338 79.6% USC 190 79.5% University of San Diego 259 76.1% Southwestern University, 208 76.0% Los Angeles Pepperdine University, Malibu 191 75.9% University of San Francisco 164 74.4% University of Santa Clara 230 74.3% California Western, San Diego 94 58.5% Whittier College 82 45.1% Golden Gate Univ., 80 45.0% San Francisco

STATE ACCREDITED, ABA-APPROVED SCHOOLS

ALL APPLICANTS JULY '91 SCHOOL TAKING EXAM % PASS Stanford University 99 87.9% UC Davis 136 88.2% Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley 230 86.1% UCLA 284 77.8% Univ. of the Pacific 316 71.8% (McGeorge), Sacramento Hastings, UC San Francisco 481 74.6% Loyola University, Los Angeles 373 74.3% USC 197 76.6% University of San Diego 303 69.0% Southwestern University, 257 66.1% Los Angeles Pepperdine University, Malibu 204 72.5% University of San Francisco 194 66.0% University of Santa Clara 268 66.4% California Western, San Diego 130 45.4% Whittier College 111 37.8% Golden Gate Univ., 111 37.8% San Francisco

STATE ACCREDITED, ABA-APPROVED SCHOOLS