Legal Profession Commons^™

What Occupational Licensing Requirements Protect The Public? Evidence From The Legal Profession, Kyle Rozema

Grantee Research

I investigate the types of occupational licensing requirements that protect the public. To do so, I employ professional discipline as a measure of potential harm and exploit considerable state-level variation in distinctive licensing requirements for American lawyers. Using novel data from 34 states between 1984 and 2019, I find evidence suggesting that the only requirements that reduce harm are those that restrict entry for certain high-risk individuals. Even with these requirements, however, it takes over a decade following licensing for any noticeable reduction in harm to materialize, and the cumulative impact on harm reduction is small in absolute terms.

Investigating The Benefits Of Live Remote Proctoring, State Bar Of California

Grantee Research

This research project evaluated the Live Remote Proctoring (LRP) for the First-Year Law Students’ Examination (FYLSX) in terms of test performance, examinee experience, and exam violation incidents.

Utilizing LRP in the October 2022 FYLSX, the study compared this session to 20 previous exams spanning from 2012 to 2022 and analyzed post-exam feedback and violation reports. The findings indicate that LRP did not conclusively outperform previous remote testing modalities in terms of exam performance. While there was a modest improvement in pass rates, it fell within the expected range of historical fluctuations, suggesting that LRP may not have been the influencing …

Putting The Bar Exam To The Test: An Examination Of The Predictive Validity Of Bar Exam Outcomes On Lawyering Effectiveness, Jason M. Scott, Stephen N. Goggin, Rick Trachok, Jenny S. Kwon, Sara Gordon, Dean Gould, Fletcher S. Hiigel, Leah Chan Grinvald, David Faigman

Grantee Research

How well does bar exam performance, on the whole, predict lawyering effectiveness? Is performance on some components of the bar exam more predictive? The current study, the first of its kind to measure the relationship between bar exam scores and a new lawyer’s effectiveness, evaluates these questions by combining three unique datasets—bar results from the State Bar of Nevada, a survey of recently admitted lawyers, and a survey of supervisors, peers, and judges who were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of recently-admitted lawyers. We find that performance on both the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) and essay components of the Nevada …

Report On The "Survey Of Perspectives On Being A Lawyer", Jerome M. Organ

Grantee Research

Over the last several years, there has been a significant growth across law schools in the number of required first-year courses/programs focused law student professional development. We do not know very much, however, about which of these approaches to fostering professional formation is the most effective.

To a large extent these courses/programs have been designed based on convenience/motivation. Within a given law school, someone who wants to champion this effort to promote professional development/formation takes the initiative and within the particular curricular ecosystem and political economy of the faculty of that law school designs something they think is interesting and …

Are Law Schools Cream-Skimming To Bolster Their Bar Exam Pass Rates?, Jason M. Scott, Josh Jackson

AccessLex Institute Research

Law schools are held accountable on many fronts to achieve and maintain high bar passage rates. ABA Standard 316 is likely the strongest accountability measure. While the course of legal education itself, along with academic and bar success interventions, is a key driver of bar exam performance, Bahadur et al. suggests that other, obscure institutional practices can serve to inflate institutional bar passage performance. Such practices could include recruitment and admission of transfer students and academic attrition. We examine this hypothesis to assess the influence of both attrition and transfer on law schools’ bar passage rates.

It's Not Where You Start, It's How You Finish: Predicting Law School And Bar Success, Aaron N. Taylor, Jason M. Scott, Josh Jackson

AccessLex Institute Research

In this study, we examine the extent to which academic and student engagement factors explain law school grades and first-time bar exam performance. Applying fixed effects linear and logit modeling, our analysis leverages law student transcript data and responses to the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) among students from a diverse group of 20 law schools to estimate academic performance and odds of bar passage. Most notably, we find that GPA improvement during law school is associated with greater odds of passing the bar exam, particularly among students who struggle the most during the first semester. Furthermore, while …

Approaching The Bar: An Analysis Of Post-Graduation Bar Exam Study Habits, Joshua L. Jackson, Tiffane Cochran

AccessLex Institute Research

For most law graduates, passing the bar exam is the culmination and most critical outcome of their legal education. The typical two months spent preparing after law school graduation are essential to success. However, empirical understanding of post-graduation bar preparation is limited; only a few studies in the legal academy have examined this period. Generally, law graduates are advised to treat bar preparation like a full-time job. But we lack research and data on the specific time management strategies and tactics that are correlated with bar passage. Given impending changes to the bar exam, such inquiries are critical to determining …

Analyzing First-Time Bar Exam Passage On The Ube In New York State, New York State Board Of Law Examiners, Accesslex Institute

AccessLex Institute Research

This report is the culmination of three years of work to collect, analyze, summarize, and interpret data on the experiences and outcomes of first-time and second-time New York State Bar candidates. After careful collaboration and review between AccessLex Institute and the New York State Board of Law Examiners to finalize this publication, a release date was anticipated for Spring 2020 to share its findings publicly and to provide recommendations for how the legal education community could build on efforts to equitably and effectively prepare law school graduates for first-time bar exam passage. Of course, at the time nobody had any …

The Effect Of The Uniform Bar Examination On Admissions, Diversity, Affordability, And Employment Across Law Schools In The United States, Manuel S. González Canché, Taylor K. Odle, Ji Yeon Bae

Grantee Research

The Uniform Bar Examination (UBE), first implemented in February 2011 in Missouri and North Dakota, is a multijurisdictional or cross-state test designed to assess a minimum shared core of legal knowledge and lawyering skills. Since its implementation, UBE has now reached 37 states and territories, including the District of Columbia. Despite this prevalence, no empirical evidence exists regarding its effects on law schools’ admissions, diversity, affordability, and employment mobility of law students and graduates or of its effects on law schools’ application volumes or average bar passage rates. This study addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive examination of the …

Future In Law? A Profile Of Graduating College Seniors Interested In Legal Education And Careers, Accesslex Institute

AccessLex Institute Research

The recent decline in law school applicants is well-documented. Despite a slight increase in 2018, the number of law school applicants remains substantially lower than levels observed prior to 2011. This decrease in the demand for legal education presents an opportunity to better understand the pathway to law school and the formation of interest in pursuing a law degree or career.

The American Association of Law Schools pioneered inquiry in this area with their groundbreaking study, Before the JD: Undergraduate Views on Law School, which surveyed undergraduates from 25 four-year institutions and first-year law students from 44 law schools, …

A Framework For Thinking About Law School Affordability, Sandy Baum, Accesslex Institute

Commissioned Research

This research report, authored by Sandy Baum, Ph.D., explores the most constructive ways to think about the affordability of legal education in the context of trends in law school enrollment, prices, debt and employment. However, the report cautions that law school affordability cannot be evaluated through simple metrics; it must be measured by taking into account the lifetime value of the investment. The report was commissioned by AccessLex Institute to add to the public discourse about what makes law schools affordable for students in different circumstances.

After Graduate And Professional School: How Students Fare In The Labor Market, Sandy Baum, Patricia Steele

Commissioned Research

This brief explores employment and earnings outcomes among advanced degree recipients. Examining these outcomes across degree, occupational and demographic categories paints a nuanced picture of the payoffs of graduate and professional education. This information is critical for prospective students and others seeking to assess the value of these degree programs.

Examining Value, Measuring Engagement: A National Study Of The Long-Term Outcomes Of A Law Degree, Accesslex Institute, Gallup

Commissioned Research

By 2019, over 3 million Americans will be enrolled in a graduate program. This is an important and difficult choice for most students, given the time, money and uncertain job prospects associated with advanced degrees. The decision to attend law school is particularly challenging, as student loan burden and job market competitiveness have increased significantly since the end of the Great Recession. Furthermore, as noted by the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, the legal profession is “at a crossroads” caused by a dwindling market share, waning public confidence and mental health issues among lawyers. These challenges call for a …

Life After Law School: A Pilot Study Examining Long-Term Outcomes Associated With Graduating Law School And The Value Of Legal Education, Accesslex Institute, Gallup

Commissioned Research

Many policymakers and leaders have been paying close attention in recent years to the near-term job placement and earnings of law school graduates, which they often declare are representative of the “value” of a law degree. Such a focus on the economic payoff of a law degree is understandable because legal education has become a more costly and leveraged endeavor. While such metrics have merit, they do not provide a holistic view of graduates’ lives or the broader benefits that legal education provides.