Louisiana State Bar Exam Results Released

LSU Law Center students achieved the second highest passage rate among all examinees on the latest Louisiana State Bar Exam, according to results released October 12, 2012 by the Committee on Bar Admissions of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

This is the first time the bar exam was graded using a compensatory scoring system by which a high performance on one segment of the exam could compensate for low performance on another segment of the exam.

Of the 179 LSU Law students who took the exam, 134, or 74.9 percent, successfully passed the exam.

Chancellor Jack M. Weiss said, “This is the first administration of the bar examination under a dramatically different scoring system.  The rules of the game are very different from those previously used.  Think of it in terms of taking a 100-yard football field and making it 20 yards shorter but 10 yards narrower.  We’ll have to study the results in a great deal more detail before we have a full understanding of the impact of the new rules.”

Weiss went on to say that, “I know that some of our alumni will be disappointed that, for only the second time in more than 20 years, LSU Law did not finish first in the bar exam contest.  I would urge them to keep in mind, however, that the margin between the top two schools was less than one percentage point.  This took place under a scoring regime that is brand new, as yet only dimly understood, and subject to ongoing review by the Louisiana Supreme Court as it gains actual experience with the new scoring system.”

Bar passage is required before graduating law students may practice in Louisiana.  The results, released by the Committee on Bar Admissions, include the percentage of examinees passing the bar who graduated from the state’s public and private law schools and the percentage passing who graduated from out-of-state law schools.

            The report on bar passage rate.