"Best" Law Schools for Bar Passage?

“BEST” LAW SCHOOLS FOR BAR PASSAGE?

Applying a Value-Added Approach to Measuring Institutional Bar Exam Performance

K E Y FI NDI NGS Many non-T14 schools are performing as well as or better than their bar passage rates or U.S. News rankings would suggest.

What are commonly considered the “best” law schools do not have the greatest value added.

Measuring law school quality more holistically may advance ef for ts to increase equity in law school admission and diversif y the legal profession.

WH AT MA K E S TH IS A P P ROAC H DI F F E R E N T Schools rely largely on an applicant’s LSAT score and undergraduate GPA to determine which students are most likely to succeed academically and pass the bar exam.

This amounts to a prediction on their part.

We go some steps further, using a school’s selectivity (a combination of LSAT score, undergraduate GPA, and admission rate), enrollment of students of color, and enrollment of part-time students to predict its bar pass differential, which is a better metric for comparing institutional bar exam performance within and across jurisdictions. Bar pass differential takes into consideration the performance of a school’s graduates as it compares to the performance of graduates from all ABA-approved law schools within a jurisdiction or a set of jurisdictions, thus using pass differential obviates the concerns about how one jurisdiction’s bar exam differs from another.

The difference between a prediction from our model and the school’s actual bar pass differential is the value added.

LI TE R ATU R E R E V I E W Ryan 20181

Discusses value-added models for ranking law schools and proposes a model using an index combining LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs.

Kinsler and Usman 20182 Use LSAT and UGPA in separate models for each school and offer a ranking.

Bahadur, Ruth, and Jones 20213 Find that Kinsler and Usman’s (2018) models are potentially problematic, unduly favoring schools with mid-range LSAT scores and undergraduate UGPAs.

Ryan, Muller, and Scott 20214 Argue that factors other than LSAT and UGPA should be accounted for in predicting law school bar performance.

This Report

Introduce an approach t h a t i n c l u d e s p re a dmi s s i o n f a c to r s , enrollment of part-time students and students of color, and number of students attriting and transferring in.

“BEST” LAW SCHOOLS FOR BAR PASSAGE?

Applying a Value-Added Approach to Measuring Institutional Bar Exam Performance

HOW WE ME A S U R E “ VA LU E-A DDE D ”

For each year (2013–2018), we estimate each school’s value added, which is the percentage-point increase in pass dif ferential attributed to each school. (The 25 schools with the greatest value add for the most recent years are included below.)

Traditional law school rankings, like U.S. News & World Repor t, are based largely on who enters law school and not what law schools do to prepare their students to pass the bar exam.

Our approach looks at what law schools do while controlling for who they enroll.

Importantly, this approach means that schools cannot pad their value added by increasing the LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs of their incoming cohorts.

2016 Bar Exam

2017 Bar Exam

10.7% 10.3% 9.5% 9.4% 8.9% 8.8% 8.3% 7.3% 7.2% 7.0% 6.8% 6.6% 6.4% 6.4% 6.0% 5.9% 5.8% 5.7% 5.4% 5.1% 5.1% 4.9% 4.8% 4.8% 4.7%

Faulkner University St. Mary's University Widener Commonwealth Western New England University Ave Maria School of Law Northern Kentucky University Liberty University Northern Illinois University Albany Law School of Union University Duquesne University Washburn University Lincoln Memorial University University of Cincinnati Wake Forest University Florida International University University of Iowa Drexel University Indiana University - Bloomington California Western School of Law U. of Southern California Georgetown University University of Chicago UC-Irvine University of Washington University of Houston 0%

5%

10%

15%

Howard University Appalachian School of Law Santa Clara University University of North Dakota Wake Forest University U. of New Hampshire St. Mary's University Nova Southeastern University Campbell University Case Western Reserve University West Virginia University Golden Gate University Regent University University of Miami City U. of New York University of Alabama Catholic U. of America U. of St. Thomas (MN) UMass Dartmouth University of Detroit Mercy Ohio Northern University University of Memphis University of Illinois Chicago University of Notre Dame UNT Dallas College of Law 20%

2018 Bar Exam

9.1% 8.4% 8.4% 7.7% 7.5% 7.0% 6.5% 6.3% 6.2% 6.1% 6.1% 5.9% 5.8% 5.6% 5.2% 5.1% 5.1% 5.1% 4.9% 4.8% 4.7% 4.6% 4.4% 4.4% 0%

5%

10%

13.6%

15%

20%

17.2% 14.6% 12.2% 11.1% 11.0% 10.5% 9.7% 9.4% 9.2% 9.0% 7.9% 7.9% 7.4% 7.2% 6.6% 6.5% 6.3% 5.8% 5.8% 5.7% 5.7% 5.7% 5.6% 5.6% 5.2%

Liberty University Catholic U. of America UMass Dartmouth University of New Mexico North Carolina Central University Cleveland State University Willamette University U. of New Hampshire Florida State University Texas Tech University Baylor University St. Thomas U. (Florida) University of Montana Northwestern University University of Toledo University of Maine Samford University U. of North Carolina Loyola University-New Orleans University of Kansas Saint Louis University University of Oregon Texas A&M University University of Maryland Northeastern University 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

“BEST” LAW SCHOOLS FOR BAR PASSAGE?

Applying a Value-Added Approach to Measuring Institutional Bar Exam Performance

H O W L AW S C H O O L S C A N U S E T H I S I N F O R M AT I O N

District of Columbia School of Law had a negative value add for its 2017 graduating cohort, with a value added ranking in the bottom 15 schools. However, for its 2018 graduating cohort, its value add was positive, ranking in the top 40 of value-added law schools for that year. Moreover, across all six years in the analysis, District of Columbia School of Law ranks 14 out of 186 for average value added.

Our value -added as ses sment potentially provides schools with p ower f ul ev idence that they are providing significant value to their students and the profession, even if their overall two-year pass rate falls short of 75 percent.

In the t wo exampl e s to the l ef t , meaningf ul overp er f ormance is represented by the blue line, while meaningful underperformance is represented by the red line.

25 SCHOOLS WITH HIGHEST AVERAGE ANNUAL VALUE-ADDED (2013–2018) 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Nova Southeastern U. Widener Commonwealth Willamette University Florida International U. Roger Williams University

5. Texas Southern University 7. University of Illinois 8. University of South Dakota 9. Northern Illinois U. 10. Washington and Lee U.

11. Campbell University 11. University of Toledo 13. Ohio Northern University 14. District of Columbia 15. University of Tennessee

16. U. Arkansas-Little Rock 16. Saint Louis University 18. U. of St. Thomas (MN) 19. U. Missouri-Kansas City 19. Quinnipiac Univerisity

21. Atlanta’s John Marshall 21. University of Arizona 21. Mississippi College 24. Brooklyn Law School 24. Mississippi College 24. University of Wyoming

Ryan, C. J., Jr. (2018). A value-added ranking of law schools. University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy, 29(3), 285–308.

Kinsler, J. S., & Usman, J. O. (2018). Law schools, bar passage, and under - and over-performing expectations. Quinnipiac Law Review, 36(2), 183–230.

Bahadur, R. D., Ruth, D., & Jones, K. T. (2021). Reexamining relative bar performance as a function of non-linearity, heteroscedasticity, and a new independent variable. New Mexico Law Review, 52(1), 119–213.

Ryan, C. J., Muller, D. T., & Scott, J. M. (2021, May 17). Not so fast: Predicting law school bar success is more complicated than you might think. AccessLex Institute. https://www.accesslex.org/news-tools-and-resources/not-so-fast-predicting-law-school-bar-success-more-complicated-you-might

Copyright © 2022 AccessLex Institute (11/22)

Mississippi College was noncompliant for its 2017 graduating cohort but had a positive value add, ranking 57 out of 186 schools for the same cohort.