Monday, the Florida bar exam results came out and, as we know, it was a low pass rate for first time takers in some law schools.
Yesterday, the pass rate for first time takers was 71.6%. These statistics only reflect first time takers. The repeat taker pass rate was much lower, considering that many of the applicants were repeat takers. There were 3,343 applicants who took the online remote Florida Bar Examination. 2,285 applicants were first time takers. Based on that statistic, 31.5% of the applicants were repeat takers.
As we can see by the statistics, the higher ranking schools did much better than the average of first time takers. Schools like FIU (88.8%). the University of Miami (82.5%) and the University of Florida (81.3%) had pretty good pass rates. Those pass rates are numbers we should see across the board.
There were some law schools like Florida State (73.9%) and Stetson Law School (78.8%) that were respectable and above the total average of all Florida law schools (71.6%).
Unfortunately, there were law schools that did not do very well. Schools like St. Thomas (50.8%), Florida Coastal (53.3%), FAMU (56.8) and Barry (59.2%) had a little over half of the students to pass the bar exam and could not even come close to the total average of all Florida law schools. Regrettably, those schools did not meet the criteria of what the students expect from their law schools and brought the average down for Florida.
In addition, we still don’t know how Cooley Law School in Tampa fared, although we know that Cooley Law School students traditionally do not do well on the bar exam.
The out of state applicants had a 62.5% pass rate, below the average of Florida law schools.
As we can see from the statistics, 32% of all applicants were repeat takers. Although the Florida Board of Bar Examiners do not release the repeat taker pass rate, we know that if the first time taker pass rate was 72%, the repeat taker pass rate was much lower.