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Reading the information on the CA State Bar website, it seems not all schools are created equal or the best and brightest are attending the best schools.
Overall, it seems the exam isn't exactly easy. But the ABA accredited school graduates had high 1st time pass rates. Then it started to drop off considerably with graduates from schools accredited in CA only and then unaccredited schools dropped off even more.
So is this the quality of the education or the quality of the student? I'm thinking student. Regardless, the gap between ABA schools and the rest was a bit shocking. I wouldn't have expected such a huge difference.
No college/grad school/major/GPA is created equal, never will be
Massive diffce btwn top 10% of Stanford Engineering grads and bottom 90%, and ComputerScience vs Chem or CivilEngg, let alone the relative morons in Stanford lib arts or law school or med school or business school
Ultimately, career paths and net worth vs age are best confirmations of how divergent are different kids; how some of most successful underachieved in HS or college but started overachieving early in career...and others did well in HS/college but have weak/mediocre career and financial trajectories, despite prestigious diplomas and high GPAs
So is this the quality of the education or the quality of the student? I'm thinking student.
The top accrediting agencies will have tougher standards. Those tougher standards translate into a more academically rigorous program and courses. The more rigorous the program, the more capable of a student it will attract, and the more it will weed out those who cannot hang.
The best and brightest want the network and prestige of an accredited law school hanging on the wall. The reality is you don't have to go to law school to take the bar exam, so if you don't care about the name of your school, then any old school will do, so you will enroll in any law school that will take you. Which also means these places take any old student who they can get tuition from whether they have good LSAT scores or undergraduate prep or not. I read somewhere the pass rate on the non-accredited schools was pretty dismal...probably because the students are not that capable to begin with.
Top schools get the top students who have the brain power to pass the Bar. When I took the Bar in Texas there was a limited number of schools and it was hard to get in to any of them, with the exception of one state school that was (and still is) a joke that was set up in the segregation days.
Bar passage rates were generally high and then they opened up more schools that admitted the students who would not have been accepted at any of the original schools. Then, the overall bar passage rate plummeted.
It all goes back to the quality of the individual student which is reflected in the selectivity of the school.
Plenty of lousy lawyers went to ABA schools and passing the bar exam has more to do with the individual than the school. Otherwise, everyone who went to an ABA school would pass the first time.
Some intangible factors that affect the numbers. Many ABA schools are comprised of younger students with no responsibilities, people who can submerge themselves full-time within the protective law school environment. Many non-ABA schools are part-time schools, where adults with families, jobs, businesses attend at night. Numbers are likely to be lower just simply because of the difference in opportunity to prepare properly for the bar the first time. Same reason affects preparation for the LSAT to get into law school. Working adults with responsibilities may not have time to adequately prepare for the exam, and ABA law school admission officers don't care about this. A 40 year-old medical doctor decides he wants to go to law school but doesn't have enough time to prepare for the LSAT and gets an average score. ABA admissions officers will likely reject him because his score is not competitive with that of little 23 year-old Suzy, who majored in English and lives with her parents, and had a higher LSAT score. Suzy will go on to graduate and pass the bar on the first try. The doctor will go to a CA-accredited school and attend school at night while maintaining his practice. He will graduate a year later than Suzy and pass the bar on the second try because he had to study AND maintain his practice. I don't downgrade the doctor because his path to becoming a lawyer didn't go through the ABA.
There are some criteria that disqualifies non-ABA schools from being ABA that have nothing to do with the quality of education. One is that the ABA requirement that its member schools have impressive environment in terms of facilities and buildings. A small, storefront-looking law school just doesn't pass muster. Another is the requirement that its professors be full-time. Can't happen at part-time schools. Another is that the law libraries of member schools must be huge, have millions of volumes. A small school that doesn't have these facilities can't be an ABA school.
To me, passing the CA Bar is the equalizer. Anyone who passes it is qualified no matter where they went to school. ABA schools are considered the most legitimate of course, and many fine lawyers emerge from them. They also are places that spit out many people with a great false sense of superiority. Non-ABA schools are legitimate law schools and a great option depending on one's circumstances. I applaud the state of CA for being ahead of the country in this regard, making a legal education accessible to almost anyone. Don't be a superficial sucker who thinks that only ABA law schools matter.
Plenty of lousy lawyers went to ABA schools and passing the bar exam has more to do with the individual than the school. Otherwise, everyone who went to an ABA school would pass the first time.
Some intangible factors that affect the numbers. Many ABA schools are comprised of younger students with no responsibilities, people who can submerge themselves full-time within the protective law school environment. Many non-ABA schools are part-time schools, where adults with families, jobs, businesses attend at night. Numbers are likely to be lower just simply because of the difference in opportunity to prepare properly for the bar the first time. Same reason affects preparation for the LSAT to get into law school. Working adults with responsibilities may not have time to adequately prepare for the exam, and ABA law school admission officers don't care about this. A 40 year-old medical doctor decides he wants to go to law school but doesn't have enough time to prepare for the LSAT and gets an average score. ABA admissions officers will likely reject him because his score is not competitive with that of little 23 year-old Suzy, who majored in English and lives with her parents, and had a higher LSAT score. Suzy will go on to graduate and pass the bar on the first try. The doctor will go to a CA-accredited school and attend school at night while maintaining his practice. He will graduate a year later than Suzy and pass the bar on the second try because he had to study AND maintain his practice. I don't downgrade the doctor because his path to becoming a lawyer didn't go through the ABA.
There are some criteria that disqualifies non-ABA schools from being ABA that have nothing to do with the quality of education. One is that the ABA requirement that its member schools have impressive environment in terms of facilities and buildings. A small, storefront-looking law school just doesn't pass muster. Another is the requirement that its professors be full-time. Can't happen at part-time schools. Another is that the law libraries of member schools must be huge, have millions of volumes. A small school that doesn't have these facilities can't be an ABA school.
To me, passing the CA Bar is the equalizer. Anyone who passes it is qualified no matter where they went to school. ABA schools are considered the most legitimate of course, and many fine lawyers emerge from them. They also are places that spit out many people with a great false sense of superiority. Non-ABA schools are legitimate law schools and a great option depending on one's circumstances. I applaud the state of CA for being ahead of the country in this regard, making a legal education accessible to almost anyone. Don't be a superficial sucker who thinks that only ABA law schools matter.
A number of ABA law schools offer part time programs. As for your last sentence, sorry, but ABA schools are the ONLY ones that matter and for good reason. Are you a proponent of DeVry and all those for-profit "universities" too? There are plenty of ABA-approved schools that are of crappy quality and don't properly prepare their students for the profession, so I don't want to even imagine what the non-ABA schools are like.
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