A New York appeals court has denied bar admission to a 2000 law graduate who practiced law for nearly 10 years without a license, rising to law firm partnership.
Starting in September, the time to take the Graduate Record Examinations will be less than two hours, which is about half its current length, according to a May 31 news release from the Educational Testing Service, which is responsible for the GRE and designs the exam.
When the National Conference of Bar Examiners launches a revamped version of the bar exam in 2026, called the NextGen bar exam, it is expected that there will be new assessments on skills including legal research, investigation and client counseling.
Updated: In-depth questions aimed at allowing candidates to demonstrate knowledge and skill of attorney functions, in addition to multiple-choice questions and essays, are expected to be part of the NextGen bar exam, according to a May 24 news release from the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
The State Bar of California’s board of trustees on Friday asked members of a blue-ribbon commission who backed a proposal to bypass the bar exam to develop their proposals further.
According to information released Tuesday by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Black candidates continue to have the lowest first-time test-taker pass rate, which was 57% in 2022, compared with 61% in 2021.
For the multiple-choice section of the February 2023 bar exam, there was a decrease of 1.5 points in the national mean scaled score, according to the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
Studies supporting an “academic mismatch” theory claim that students are harmed by racial preferences, but the data doesn’t support that assertion, according to a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law.
For law schools that fall below the bar pass rate required for ABA accreditation, there are many avenues for change. We spoke to three schools that have improved their numbers.
The latest version of the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT has passed the Uniform Bar Examination by “a significant margin,” earning a combined score of 297 that surpasses even the high threshold of 273 set by Arizona.
A controversial law professor has said data on about 6,500 law students at four law schools provides strong support for his “academic mismatch” theory—that law students with lower qualifications than their peers fall behind and have worse outcomes in a learning environment geared toward better-qualified students.
Updated: The Golden Gate University School of Law, which has not had a two-year bar pass rate at or above 75% since its class of 2017, has received an extension to come into compliance with Standard 316, which requires a bar passage rate of at least 75% within a two-year time period.
Updated: Three law schools have come into compliance with an ABA accreditation standard requiring two-year bar passage rates of at least 75%, the council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar recently announced.
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