How Massachusetts Performed on July’s Bar Exam

The Massachusetts Bar exam results are out.

Greg Ryan, of Boston Business Journal, reports that law students’ scores saw improvement after last year’s low passage rates.

How July Test Takers Fared

July’s exam saw a 71.5% passage rate, according to data published by the Massachusetts Bar of Board Examiners. Last July, only 69.2% of test-takers passed, marking the worst passage rate this century.

“The improvement was helped in large part by better performances at local institutions whose passage rates typically rank in the lower half of Massachusetts law schools,” Ryan writes. “Graduates of New England Law Boston, Suffolk University Law School, and the Massachusetts School of Law in Andover all performed better this summer than graduates from the previous year.”

Historic Patterns

The last time the Massachusetts state bar had higher than an 80% passage rate was in July 2013. Since then, Ryan says, fewer people have applied to law schools, which has resulted in many schools lowering their admission standards.

States that have, in recent years, shown high bar passage rates include Oklahoma (86.9%), Iowa (86.57%), Missouri (86.30%), New Mexico (85.71%), and New York (83.92%).

Sources: Boston Business Journal, Above The Law, Massachusetts Bar of Board Examiners.