Iowa law school graduates are better at passing the bar

More than three-fourths of law school graduates who want to become an Iowa lawyer passed the state’s bar exam this year — significantly higher than 2016, Iowa Judicial Branch data show.

Of the 260 people who took the Iowa bar this year, 204 passed (78 percent). In 2016, the pass rate was 68 percent, the lowest rate in a decade.  

“I think this shows that Iowa’s two law schools are accepting students who are capable of doing well in the classrooms and of doing a good job at passing the bar,” said Jerry Anderson, dean of Drake University’s Law School.

Some of the nation’s law schools accept students “who have little chance of passing the bar,” Anderson said. “It’s a major issue for those schools. We don’t have that problem in Iowa.”

Enrollment in the more than 200 accredited U.S. law schools has plummeted roughly 30 percent since 2010, prompting some schools to lower entrance standards. Enrollment at the University of Iowa and Drake law schools also has dipped.

Since 2010, there's also been a nationwide decline in the percentage of people who passed state bar exams, National Conference of Bar Examiners data show. The nonprofit group develops licensing tests for bar admission as well as other services.

In 2011, for example, 69 percent of the 78,900 people who took state bar exams across the nation passed. In 2016, just 58 percent of the nearly 73,000 test-takers passed.

The percentage of people who passed the Iowa bar exams on their first try also increased in 2017. Most of those who took the Iowa State Bar Examination in 2017 graduated from Drake and the University of Iowa law schools, according to the data.

In general, those who want to practice law in a state must pass a battery of exams that test the test-takers’ legal knowledge and skills.

The multi-day exams include essay and multiple-choice questions as well as a review of test-takers’ ability to complete fundamental tasks beginning lawyers are expected to know.

DATABASE: Bar exam results for Drake, University of Iowa law school graduates

In recent years, some have questioned the usefulness of the bar exams, including those affiliated with the American Bar Association, a private organization that among other things sets academic standards for law schools.

Many assume a person’s “performance on the bar is reflective of how well a student is educated or how good of a lawyer they are going to be,” said Hilarie Bass, president of the American Bar Association that has offices in Chicago and Washington, D.C. “One of the things the ABA is looking at is the future of some of those assumptions.”

Bass said many law school graduates who don’t pass the bar exams the first time do pass the second, third or fourth time.

She said association members are studying whether a basic exam should be given to students after they finish their first year of law school. Students who don’t do well may decide to discontinue law school.

“There’s no reason to continue to go into debt for the next two years,” Bass said.

In addition, association members are reviewing whether law school graduates should be tested on more than two dozen areas of the law or whether graduates should take exams that focus on areas of the law in which they plan to focus.

“If I am going to specialize in criminal law, do I need to be tested on family law?” she said.

Three years ago, the Iowa Supreme Court considered creating a “diploma privilege” for graduates of Drake and UI law schools that would have required them to take classes with an increased focus on Iowa-specific law and allowed them to practice immediately.

It failed to gain the court’s backing.

In Iowa in 2017, 260 people who graduated from 54 law schools across the country took the Iowa Bar Examination, offered in February and July. More than half graduated from law schools at Drake or UI.

The percentage of the schools’ graduates who passed the Iowa bar was higher in 2017 than the previous year, but lower than pass rates in other years since 2008, a Des Moines Register review of pass rates showed.

Specifically, the judicial branch data show:

• Ninety percent of the 71 UI law school graduates who took the Iowa bar in 2017 passed. In 2016, 84 percent of UI’s graduates passed, the lowest rate in a 10-year span. UI’s highest pass rate of 96 percent occurred in 2013 and 2015.
• Seventy-nine percent of the 100 Drake law school graduates who took the exams in 2017 passed. That’s up from 2016, when 72 percent of Drake law school graduates passed the Iowa bar. Drake’s highest pass rate was in 2010, when 95 percent of its graduates passed the Iowa bar.

"We were a point above the state average — we’d like to see that higher, but it certainly was respectable,” Drake's Anderson said.

In 2011, 463 students attended Drake’s law school, according to ABA data. This year, the law school’s enrollment is 306, Anderson said.

“We’ve become more selective,” he said of Drake’s admission standards.

In addition, the law school has done a better job of preparing students for the bar, he said. A staff member was added whose main job is to help students get ready for the bar, both through one-on-one sessions and classroom lessons, he said.

In addition, a summer bar exam prep program was added to help third-year students get ready for the tests.  

“All of that seems to have worked real well,” Anderson said. “We’ve been able to identify students who might be struggling, and we can get them more help.”

University of Iowa officials also are pleased with how their school’s graduates performed on the bar.

“As long as the (pass rate) starts with a nine, I am happy,” said Gail Agrawal, dean of UI’s law school, which this year has 420 students. About 575 students attended the law school in 2012.

Agrawal said UI did not lower its admission standards to boost enrollment as some other law schools across the country did.

“As a result, we didn’t see those precipitous drops in bar passage rates,” she said.