The LSAT and the bar exam are two important hurdles to cross for aspiring lawyers. Many believe test-takers’ performance on the former is an indicator of how they’ll do on the latter, which could be bad news for law applicants with low LSAT scores.
“If you have a low LSAT score, you are more likely to have a low MBE score when you emerge from law school and take the bar exam,” says Erica Moeser, president and CEO of the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The MBE, or Multistate Bar Examination, is one portion of the bar exam in most states.
[Learn which law schools have students with the highest LSAT scores.]
Students with high LSAT scores, however, aren’t guaranteed to pass the bar the first time around. And some law schools appear to do a better job than others at preparing their students for the bar.
U.S. News examined the median LSAT scores and bar passage rates among 196 ranked law schools that submitted data in an annual survey.
At Yale University, the No. 1 ranked school in the 2017 Best Law Schools, the median LSAT score for all program entrants in 2015 was 173 — not far from the test’s highest score of 180. The pass rate for Yale graduates who took the New York bar exam for the first time in 2014 — the most recent data available — was 96.4 percent.
At Stanford University, which tied for No. 2 in the rankings, entering students had LSAT scores that were almost as high, but the pass rate for graduates taking the California bar was only 86.8 percent in 2014. On closer look, however, Stanford grads actually beat their state’s overall bar passage rate by nearly 45 percent, while Yale grads beat the New York pass rate by just 32.1 percent.
Some states’ bar exams are considered to be harder than others. California’s overall bar passage rate for first-time test-takers in 2014 was just 60 percent, compared with New York’s 73 percent.
| School (name) (state) | Median LSAT score for all 2015 entrants | 2014 bar passage rate for first-time test-takers (state) | Overall bar passage rate in that state | How much better grads did than state bar passage rate | U.S. News rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard University (MA) | 173 | 97.3% (NY) | 73% | 33.3% | 2 (tie) |
| Yale University (CT) | 173 | 96.4% (NY) | 73% | 32.1% | 1 |
| Columbia University (NY) | 171 | 92.4% (NY) | 73% | 26.6% | 4 (tie) |
| Stanford University (CA) | 171 | 86.8% (CA) | 60% | 44.7% | 2 (tie) |
| University of Chicago | 170 | 97.3% (IL) | 85% | 14.5% | 4 (tie) |
| Duke University (NC) | 169 | 94.3% (NY) | 73% | 29.2% | 11 |
| New York University | 169 | 95.7% (NY) | 73% | 31.1% | 6 |
| University of Pennsylvania | 169 | 99.3% (NY) | 73% | 36% | 7 |
| Northwestern University (Pritzker) (IL) | 168 | 92.4% (IL) | 85% | 8.7% | 12 |
| University of Michigan–Ann Arbor | 168 | 92.9% (NY) | 73% | 27.3% | 8 (tie) |
| University of Virginia | 168 | 98% (NY) | 73% | 34.2% | 8 (tie) |
At each school on the list, the largest number of graduates took the bar exam in New York, California or Illinois in 2014.
Grads at the schools with the highest LSAT scores beat their state bar passage rate by an average of 29 percent. In contrast, graduates from the 10 schools with the lowest median LSAT scores did 17 percent worse, on average, than the overall bar passage rates in their states.
[Understand how bar passage rates should influence a law school decision.]
At many schools, LSAT scores for incoming students have declined in recent years.
At Georgetown University, for example, the bottom 25 percent of applicants who were accepted had a score of 168 or lower in 2010. By 2013, the bottom 25 percent scored 163 or lower, according to the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
The average among all U.S. schools approved by the American Bar Association has remained stable, according to the Law School Admission Council. In every testing year from 2007-2008 through 2013-2014, the mean LSAT wavered between 150 and 151.
During that same time period, however, data from the National Conference of Bar Examiners show the average pass rate for first-time test-takers of the bar exam across the country declined from 79 percent in 2007 to just 74 percent in 2014.
Schools have taken some heat from critics who say they are lowering their admissions standards too much or failing to prepare students for the bar.
Still, prospective students should know the LSAT isn’t the only indicator of success on the bar exam, says Moeser from the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
[Excel at the LSAT as a second-time test-taker.]
“Students who have high law school grade-point averages are more likely to do well on the bar exam than those who have low law school grade-point averages,” she says.
While passing the bar exam is the last step to becoming a practicing lawyer, it doesn’t necessarily ensure a successful career, experts say.
“LSAT and bar performance are not always reliable indicators of legal skill and competence,” Allen Mendenhall, an assistant attorney general for the state of Alabama, wrote in an email. Mendenhall, who emphasized that his views are his alone and not a reflection of the Alabama attorney general’s, has long criticized the bar exam.
“I was recently a staff attorney to the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and in that capacity viewed several bar disciplinary matters involving lawyer malpractice and legal incompetence. On a purely anecdotal level these cases demonstrated, to me, that the bar exam — which the disciplined lawyers had all passed — was not always successful in weeding out bad lawyers from good lawyers,” he wrote.
He encourages law applicants to take both exams seriously.
“There’s no formula for success on the LSAT or bar exam,” he wrote. “A strict, regimented study schedule remains, in my view, the best mode of preparation.”
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Compare LSAT Scores With Bar Exam Performance for Law Schools originally appeared on usnews.com
