Rachel R. Paras ’04

Ninety one percent. Seeing St. John’s July 2020 New York Bar Exam results in print, Rachel Paras smiled from ear to ear behind her face mask. It had been a long, trying few months. But the Law School’s recent graduates had prepared and performed so well that, once again, their success put alma mater ahead of the statewide and national averages for first-time test takers. Paras was especially proud that a portion of that 91% was attributable to students who took her Applied Legal Analysis (ALA) class.

A pillar of the Law School’s robust bar preparation program, ALA is a full-year course that helps a select group of students build the targeted knowledge and skills they need to succeed on the Multistate Bar Exam, Multistate Essay Exam, and Multistate Performance Test. Paras started teaching ALA as an adjunct professor in 2016. Now, she’s taking on a newly expanded role as Senior Director of Bar Preparation at St. John’s Law.

“This is such an exciting opportunity,” Paras says. “My St. John’s teaching career has taken me from Drafting: Adoption Law and the Externship Seminar beginning in 2012, to working with LL.M. students in the ALA classroom four years later, and then joining Professor Bob Ruescher and the late Professor Erica Fine ’82 in 2018 to teach the J.D. ALA course. I see my new role as a natural extension of my ALA work.”

As she transitions to her leadership position, Paras continues to focus on student success. “I look forward to helping our students prepare for the bar so they’re confident when they get there,” she shares. “I want them to know that everyone at St. John’s is rooting for them, whether it’s on the bar exam, in their careers, or just in life in general. I also want to make St. John’s number one in the state for bar passage. We’ve brought the bar passage rate up to 91%, but 95% or higher would just be great. I believe we have the team, the students, and the support to make it happen.”

Paras also sees her move to the Law School administration as an opportunity to set an example for her children. “I know my kids like that I’m a lawyer and tell their friends I teach in a law school,” she says. “I hope they’re proud of their mom and know that when I’m not with them I’m working with my students. It’s really all for them, so they can see that making a commitment to other people and an idea matter. If I can help just one student pass the bar who otherwise wouldn’t have passed, then maybe that student can make a change in the world that we all need.”

Taking this next step, Paras thinks of Professor Fine, her close colleague and friend who loved working with students on their bar preparation. “There’s no better way to honor Erica than to succeed and show that St. John’s is the best place in New York to go to law school,” she says. “I’m not sure what happens when we die. But I hope wherever Erica has gone, she’s cheering us along. At a minimum, I know she’s probably making fun of me for this article.”