PLEASE SEND COMMENTS TO STANDARDS REVIEW COMMITTEE ON THE PROPOSED ABA INTERPRETATION: see contact information below - DEADLINE for written Comment - MAY 10.

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The ABA has propose Interpretation 301-6 which addresses bar passage data and how it will be handled by the Accreditation Committee. Specifically, it will set a new minimum benchmark first time bar passage rate at 70%. This rate is almost 10 points higher than the 61% first time bar passage rate of African Americans. One research predicts that every one of the top five ABA-approved law schools in the country in terms of African-American enrollment (Howard, Southern, Texas Southern, North Carolina Central, and District of Columbia) will fail to meet this propose interpretation. There is no evidence that first time bar passage is related to quality and effectiveness of subsequent legal service.

Please take the time to contact the Standards Review Committee of the Council on Legal Education either in writing or preferably at the public hearing to be held in San Francisco at May 16 meeting in San Francisco. The deadline for written comment is May 10. See below for address.

It is imperative that this change is not adopted. It will be the death blow to increasing African American enrollment in law schools.

Background

At the Council's February 10, 2007 open session at the mid-winter meeting in Miami, the Standards Review Committee began consideration of a new interpretation on bar passage that would "codify the long-standing practices of the Accreditation Committee" and "respond to findings in the DOE Draft Staff Analysis regarding the transparency of the Committee's practices regarding bar passage." The Council decided to raise the cut-score trigger to a flat rate of 70% in the proposed interpretation. That is about a 15% increase in the cut-score that school's will be required to meet or else be put on report-back status for failure to satisfy Standards 301(a) and 501(b). And under other changes that the Dept of Ed is requiring the Council to make, schools will only have two years to demonstrate compliance, unless the Council finds good cause for an extension.

Professor William Wesley Patton of Whittier Law School has done a detailed study of the impact of these changes. It conservatively estimates based on the available data that 36 schools would have failed to meet the 70% cut-score over the ten-year period of 1996-2005, including every one of the top five ABA-approved law schools in the country in terms of African-American enrollment (Howard, Southern, Texas Southern, North Carolina Central, and District of Columbia).

In addition, provisionally approved Florida A & M, which also has a high percentage of African-American students, will likely fail to meet this mark when its grads begin taking the bar. The reason is because the best data available on bar passage rates by racial and ethnic groups, the 1998 LSAC National Longitudinal Bar Passage Study, shows that the average first-time bar passage rate of African-American graduates is 61%.

What this all means is that if the 70% cut-score in Proposed Interpretation 301-6 is approved, law schools with access-oriented missions will face additional pressure to restrict the number of African-American applicants they admit, so as to avoid being put on report and facing the threat of sanctions within two years; because on average, each African-American applicant a school admits will push it further out of compliance with the standards.

Another issue that has not gotten much discussion is that Standard 301 is about the quality of a school's educational program, not bar results, which supposedly are indicative of a problem with the school's program. But , the facts are that the high-LSAT graduates score at higher passing rates, indicating that the issue is with admissions, not the quality of the educational program. The 70% cut-score inherently favors elite schools and does not account for access-based programs that serve the African-American community.

Another issue is that while this proposed interpretation raises the performance bar, the Council continues to preclude schools from identifying at-risk students who would benefit from academic support programs that improve first-time passing rates and requiring them to participate in those programs. No standard or interpretation requiring a minimum performance level should be adopted while schools are prohibited from doing what needs to be done to raise the performance level of these students.
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CONTACT INFORMATION:

The Standards Review Committee will be holding a public hearing May 16, 2007 in conjunction with the ALI meeting in San Francisco. The purpose of the hearing is to obtain comments with respect to proposed Interpretation 301-6 (bar passage) and Standard 801(a), to make the latter consistent with Rule 10 of the Rules of Procedure for the Approval of Law Schools . In addition, comments will be accepted regarding proposed changes to previously discussed Rules 13, 20 and 21 and proposed Interpretation 509-3. Text and commentary for proposed Interpretation 301-6 and proposed Standard 801(a) can be found at: http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standards/noticeandcommen...)_20070320094054.pdf. Text and commentary for proposed Rules 13, 20 and 21 and proposed Interpretation 509-3 is available at: http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standards/standardsdocume...NewInterpretation509 3.doc.

The Standards Review hearing will be held:

Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 9:00a.m.
Tower Salon Room
Westin St. Francis Hotel
335 Powell St.
San Francisco, CA
Tele: 415/ 397-7000

In addition to the hearing, interested persons are encouraged to submit written comments to Dan Freehling, Deputy Consultant, at our Chicago office, (321 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60610) or by e-mail at freehlid@staff.abanet.org . All written comments must be received by May 10, 2007.