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Comment by blatherard | Hacker News Reader

I was surprised that this article doesn't mention that California is one of the few states that allow graduates of unaccredited law schools to sit for the bar exam. My understanding is that the bar passage rate for graduates of these programs was much lower than that of ABA-accredited institutions.

Edit: I found an article with some numbers: http://abovethelaw.com/2016/11/californias-bar-exam-passage-...

The breakout chart (towards the end) shows that ABA-accredited school graduates passed with a rate of about 60% on the first try, which seems alright, compared to a dismal 30% or less for unaccredited schools.

Edit 2: For comparison, the NY bar passed 67% of first timers, which is a little easier than California, but not dramatically so. Source: https://www.nybarexam.org/ExamStats/2016_NY_Bar_Exam_PassRat...

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The article itself says:

"Last year, just 62 percent of first-time test takers passed the California bar exam, compared with 83 percent in New York."

The 83% are also in your data if you focus on the ABA schools only. That means failure rates are 17% and 38%, respectively, or a factor of 2.2x.

The student populations of NY and CA are probably comparable, and in any case, as the article points out, the tests are largely identical; the differences mostly stem from differing score requirements.

I'm sure there will be many snide comments about lawyers in this thread, but most law students I've come across have appeared intelligent, serious, and conscientious. I doubt that a system that cuts half of them can be considered reasonable–though I'm not sure what the consequences are? Here in 'old Europe" there are limits on how often you can take such exams–usually 3x. If you fail the third time, you may have spent 8 years studying law and end up legally barred from ever getting any degree.

Sorry, I looked just at the February numbers. You're right.

In NY, you can only take 3x. In CA, you can take it as many times as you want. This is one of the reasons that the "repeat taker rate" and the "aggregate rate" in CA are much worse than in NY. CA simply has a different proportion of first-time takers, since repeat takers are not cut off at any point.

When I took the bar in 2007, there was a guy who blogged about taking the bar. After learning he had failed, he continued blogging [1] about his repeat-taking experience. In all, he took the bar 11 times over 6 years before finally passing. It struck me that by the time he was a newly-minted attorney, I was a senior associate. I can't imagine how much time and money he spent on that process, and I do wonder whether the system should allow people to do this. On the other hand, he obviously really wanted it, and there's something to be said for that.

1: http://californiagbx0707.blogspot.com/

Reminds me of the joke "what do you call the guy who got LAST PLACE in medical school"

Doctor

If you set a standard, the last place guy is just as much a part of it as the first place guy. Now it might not look so good on resumes, but he is legal.

It's a pointless joke. For a high enough standard, last place is plenty good. The fact that someone is in last place says nothing about how difficult the cutoff is.

To reverse the joke: you know what they call last place in the award ceremony? Bronze medalist.

Or to go along further,

Do you know what they call the guy who got last place at the 100m dash in the olympics? Last place / slowest / loser

Despite being the 8th fastest person on the planet.

Then why do you make the joke? It's misleading.

Its an interesting thought line.

In fact, you don't even have to go to a law school to sit for the bar in California, which is not the case elsewhere. Not surprisingly, these students have much lower pass rates, and drag down the overall numbers.

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