<p>I'm looking at Liberty University School of Law. Also they have on their site that they have a bar passage rate for 2007 of 89%. And then in 2008 it was like 94%, and for the year of 2009 it was 100%.</p>
<p>This strikes me as odd because the median LSAT last year was like 150 with a 3.17GPA. Why is this school's passage rate higher then Ive-leagues? Is this school a good school because of the high passage rate? Perhaps a top-100?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>I can’t answer specifically about Liberty…but…</p>
<p>The bar passage rate varies from state to state. When USNews ranks a law school, it lists the passage rate in the state where the largest number of students from that school take the bar. That may not be the state in which the law school is located. </p>
<p>Liberty is located in Virginia. The bar passage rate there for 2009 is a smidge above 75%. For first time takers, it’s a bit above 80%. So, you need to compare Liberty’s pass rate with that rate–or the rate of the state where the largest group takes the bar. There are states which have higher and lower pass rates than Virginia. Indeed, there are states in which over 95% of those who take the bar pass it. Knowing the bar passage rate tells you almost nothing about the law school if you don’t know which bar exam is involved. It is one heck of a lot harder to pass the California bar than it is to pass Virginia’s, for example. </p>
<p>Second, the national law schools don’t teach the law of a particular state. Thus, when a graduate of Columbia Law School takes the bar exam in New York, (s)he will take a bar review course and cram things like the statute of limitations for various civil actions in New York; the legal requirements to write a valid will in the state of New York; the grounds for divorce in New York, the rules of civil procedure in New York, etc. None of these subjects will have been covered in courses taken at Columbia Law School. </p>
<p>A student who goes to New York Law (not NYU) is more likely to have taken a course in New York Civil Procedure. Even in more general courses like Evidence or Criminal Law, NY law will be studied because that’s the bar exam most students will take. Schools like this tend to teach what lawyers call “black letter law.” In a very real sense, law students at such schools are better prepared to pass the bar exam when they finish law school. That doesn’t mean that they are better trained lawyers. National law schools do not focus on preparing their grads to pass the bar exam in a particular state; local law schools do. </p>
<p>I hope that helps. </p>
<p>I assume you know that Liberty is a fundamentalist Protestant University. Ave Maria, which was also on your list, is a conservative Catholic school. I personally would not advise anyone who is not of the faith involved to attend either of them.</p>
<p>Liberty’s passage rate of of 89, 94, and now 100% is for all graduates, however for the virginia bar it is only like 3-4 points lower, and this Liberty was touted the 3rd highest in the state.</p>
<p>Liberty’s class is like 120 students? And they are from like 39 differ states, and only like 20% are from virginia. Would this make it a national law school? </p>
<p>If it is a national law school (thus they don’t teach the bar for a specific state) and it has such a low LSAT median how do you explain the high bar passage rate if they cannot teach black-letter law for all the states the students take the exams at? </p>
<p>Could the statistic they are advertising be inaccurate? How would I verify it? (ie ABA?)</p>
<p>Bar passage rate is one of the least relevant things to look at in choosing a law school. As jonri mentioned, the top schools don’t teach state law and the courses that cover MBE topics (property, crim law, torts, evidence, con law and contracts) aren’t as focused on the black-letter law. You can see Liberty’s bar passage rates for at least one year (probably last year) in the ABA-LSAC official guide:</p>
<p><a href=“http://officialguide.lsac.org/SearchResults/SchoolPage_PDFs/ABA_LawSchoolData/ABA5834.pdf[/url]”>Search for Law Schools – LSAC Official Guide | The Law School Admission Council;
<p>One thing to note is that they have very few people taking the bar in any given state, with the majority of students taking the bar in what are not considered especially difficult jurisdictions.</p>
<p>What am I missing? </p>
<p>How big was the class that graduated and took the bar? Looking at the employment status of the class 9 months after graduation, it would seem that there were 50 people in this graduating class. Of those, 46 took a bar exam. (Note that there were 219 people enrolled of which 105 were first years. So, it seems probable that there were about 50 people who graduated that year. )</p>
<p>The numbers are small which makes percentages less meaningful, imo. Still, that means that 4 people, or 8% of the class, didn’t take ANY bar exam. How did that happen? I don’t know, but personally I think you have to keep that % in mind before calculating the percentage of the class that passed the bar. If 8% did not take the bar…I wouldn’t claim that 100% passed the bar. Adding up the numbers, I see that 41 of 50 people or 82% passed the bar . </p>
<p>I note that roughly 45% of the student body took the Virginia bar exam, so it may well be that Liberty offers black letter law courses in some aspects of Virginia law. (Fordham, for example, offers courses in New York Civil Procedure.) </p>
<p>And part from other considerations, when roughly 45% of the grads of a law school work in one state and in a total of 14 states, I personally would not consider it a national law school. YMMV.</p>
<p>Like A-ski, I think bar passage rate is an idiotic way to judge law schools. Even if you think it’s valid, it’s only fair to limit it to comparing the grads of two schools on the same bar exam. If California is a tougher bar than Virginia, then if most UCal-Berkely grads take the Cal bar and most UVa grads take the VA bar, UVa isn’t a better law school because a hgher percentage of its grads pass an easier bar. (I’ve no idea of the actual numbers.)</p>
<p>Still, you have to be impressed that 101.8% of students receive grants or scholarships.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses, I understand the concept of differ states = different degree of difficulty of bar. And that there were only 50 students representing the body of the statistic. </p>
<p>I still just don’t understand, why would the school intentionally focus on black-letter-law so they can get such high bar passage rates - soley marketing purpose? I guess so…</p>
<p>Anway thanks</p>
<p>Look, I don’t know that Liberty focuses on black letter law and I don’t claim that I do. I’m just explaining why focusing on the bar passage rate isn’t the best way to judge the strength of a law school. To some extent, I’m also explaining why I’m less impressed by Liberty’s numbers than you are.</p>
<p>I wasn’t impressed by the high passage rate, just clueless as to why it was so high with such a low median lsat score.</p>
<p>Also their LSAT median scores went from like 157-156-154 and last year it was only like 150-151? Why would it lower so quickly?</p>
<p>And what is provisionally accreddited?</p>
<p>
It is the same as regular ABA accreditation, except that the term “provisional” means that the school is new. ABA doesn’t grant full accreditation until a school has been operating for several years. A new school that has been approved by ABA will get “provisional accreditation” until it is old enough to qualify for full accreditation.</p>
<p>Liberty is a relatively young law school, and it is still in the “provisional accreditation” stage. For practical purposes, this does not matter. A JD from a “provisionally ABA accredited” law school is considered to have the same validity as one from a regular ABA-accredited law school.</p>
<p>
Liberty’s bar pass rates on the VA bar exam are respectable, but not remarkably high. If you compare the LSAC data sheets, you will find several schools with higher (e.g. Georgetown, UVa, Richmond, George Mason, George Washington) or equivalent (Wahington & Lee, William & Mary) VA bar pass rates than Liberty.</p>
<p>Granted, these are all good schools, which suggests that Liberty is doing something right. However, note that:</p>
<p>(1) these other schools, for the most part, are successfully preparing much larger numbers of students for the VA bar exam than Liberty, and</p>
<p>(2) some of these other schools are not sending their best students to the VA bar exam. At the University of Virginia, for example, the Virginia bar exam is not particularly popular. UVa graduates are more likely to take the New York bar exam (because New York City is the top legal market in the country). </p>
<p>
Liberty is a small school; the LSAC form shows only 37 JDs awarded. The small size could make admissions statistics volatile. </p>
<p>But also, Liberty is gradually expanding enrollment. If you look at the entering class [url=<a href=“http://www.liberty.edu/academics/law/index.cfm?PID=17821]profiles[/url”>http://www.liberty.edu/academics/law/index.cfm?PID=17821]profiles[/url</a>], you will see that the only 50 students entered in 2005, but this climbed steadily to 109 in 2008. It’s often necessary to sacrifice admissions standards for enrollment growth. LSAT scores dropped slightly over the same period. </p>
<p>This happened at Ave Maria, for example. The first few classes were small, had relatively high LSATs, and high Michigan bar pass rates. As they expanded, the LSATs and bar pass rates dropped significantly.</p>
<p>Avoid Liberty like the plague! Their purpose is to overturn Roe v Wade (coat hanger sales would go through the roof) and get God (protestant, southern Baptist, Republican God that is) back into Government. They want to go backward to the 1880s where woman dont talk back and especially dont vote.</p>
<p>You will be making your deal with the devil if you go there. Dont say you havent been warned. Good luck.</p>
<p>Where are you getting that the pass rate is 100%?</p>
<p>How could the overall pass rate be 100%, with a rate for Virginia that’s 3%-4% lower?</p>
<p>I got the 100% passage rate from a unofficial source (I don’t want to say because the “entity/person/?” was not supposed to tell me)</p>
<p>The source was confused. There was a 100% pass rate in a few states, but not nationally and not in Virginia. This article gives the details. </p>
<p>[News</a> & Events - News Article - Liberty University](<a href=“News Article | News & Events | Liberty University”>News Article | News & Events | Liberty University)</p>
<p>Sounds like there was a 100% pass rate in a few states, where probably only a few Liberty grads took the exam. I would assume that the most popular state for Liberty grads remains Virginia. Liberty’s 2009 bar pass rate for VA apparently dropped to only 57%, which was well below the overall rate of 75%.</p>
<p>Liberty’s LSAT scores appear to have declined in recent years, as the school has expanded its enrollment. There is usually a correlation between success on the LSAT and success on the bar exam. So a decline in LSATs for admitted students is often followed, three years later, by a decline in the bar pass rate for graduating students.</p>
<p>“Liberty’s 2009 bar pass rate for VA apparently dropped to only 57%,”</p>
<p>Are you absolutely certain!!? I may give you a check for $100 (or if your a girl I can offer my services) if you can just tell me where you got that statistic from??</p>
<p>I would really appreciate it as not only will this tell me something about liberty, but a generalization I can apply to other new schools.</p>
<p>bc - read the link in post 16.</p>
<p>According to [url=<a href=“http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=18495&MID=12098]Liberty[/url”>News Article | News & Events | Liberty University]Liberty[/url</a>] itself:
According to Virginia Lawyers Weekly, the [url=<a href=“http://valawyersweekly.com/blog/2009/11/02/virginia-law-schools-report-bar-pass-rates/]overall[/url”>Virginia law schools report bar pass rates | Virginia Lawyers Weekly]overall[/url</a>] pass rate was 75%. The Virginia Lawyers Weekly story probably includes bar pass rates for all Virginia schools, but I don’t have an account and can’t read the whole thing.</p>