California Supreme Court Moves to Make Bar Exam Easier to Pass
That result, the school’s dean, David L. Faigman, wrote the California Committee of Bar Examiners last December, was “outrageous
and constitutes unconscionable conduct on the part of a trade association that masquerades as a state agency.”
“The cut score is almost everything,” said Robert Anderson, a professor of corporate law at Pepperdine
School of Law in California, who did a study of the 10 most difficult state exams in 2013.
Some, including Fleming’s Fundamentals of Law, a California bar exam preparation business
that tracks the debate over the certification score, called the court’s change “unprecedented.”
Nicholas W. Allard, dean of Brooklyn Law School, hailed the action as an effort “to take back control of licensing and admitting new lawyers.”
The move “signals that much larger concerns are at work
that will force eventually an overhaul everywhere of legal testing and licensing practices,” he said.
In February, 20 deans at American Bar Association-accredited California law schools
wrote the state Supreme Court asking it to set a lower passing score.
