Breaking Down Bar Passage: Examining the Predictive Utility of Academic Performance and Student Characteristics on Subscale Scores of the Uniform Bar Exam—A Follow-Up Study

Building on a prior study by Farley et al. (2019), this study examines the predictive utility of academic performance and student characteristics on the subcomponents of the Ohio Bar Exam—the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), Written Essay, and Multistate Performance Test (MPT)—and situates findings within the context of the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE). Results support the notion that in-law school factors, such as cumulative GPA and upper-level bar coursework, are more predictive of first-time bar passage than pre-law school credentials or demographics alone, but statistical models struggled to identify clear predictive patterns between experiential coursework and MPT performance—highlighting the need for additional research on the MPT specifically. Overall, findings underscore the timeliness of the newly developed 2026 NextGen Bar Exam, while making a conceptual contribution to bar passage research and providing valuable insights for legal education, policy, and practice

An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Student-Faculty Demographics on Law School Graduate Attrition, Attrition Rates, J.D.s Awarded, and Bar Passage

This paper seeks to delve into one of legal education\u27s most critical yet scarcely explored questions: How does the interplay between student and faculty demographics impact law students\u27 sense of belonging and, in turn, their rates of attrition, the earning of Juris Doctor degrees, and their success on the bar exam The necessity for this exploration is highlighted by enduring disparities in bar passage rates and the continual underrepresentation of women and minorities within the legal profession. Despite a growing emphasis on the alienation experienced by women and minority students in law schools and its effects on their graduation rates, a significant understanding gap remains regarding the potential for faculty-student demographic congruence—or its absence—to either mitigate or exacerbate these challenges. Through a detailed empirical examination, this research aims to make a vital contribution to the conversation on enhancing inclusivity and equity in legal education. It seeks to enrich the ongoing dialogue around legal education reform and to underscore the critical role that faculty diversity plays in creating a more inclusive and supportive environment for all law students

Student Debt, COVID-19 Relief, and Loan Forgiveness: Perspectives from Today’s Young Lawyers

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Validity, Reliability, and Fairness Evidence for the JD-Next Exam

At a time when institutions of higher education are exploring alternatives to traditional admissions testing, institutions are also seeking to better support students and prepare them for academic success. Under such an engaged model, one may seek to measure not just the accumulated knowledge and skills that students would bring to a new academic program but also their ability to grow and learn through the academic program. To help prepare students for law school before they matriculate, the JD-Next is a fully online, noncredit, 7- to 10-week course to train potential juris doctor students in case reading and analysis skills. This study builds on the work presented for previous JD-Next cohorts by introducing new scoring and reliability estimation methodologies based on a recent redesign of the assessment for the 2021 cohort, and it presents updated validity and fairness findings using first-year grades, rather than merely first-semester grades as in prior cohorts. Results support the claim that the JD-Next exam is reliable and valid for predicting law school success, providing a statistically significant increase in predictive power over baseline models, including entrance exam scores and grade point averages. In terms of fairness across racial and ethnic groups, smaller score disparities are found with JD-Next than with traditional admissions assessments, and the assessment is shown to be equally predictive for students from underrepresented minority groups and for first-generation students. These findings, in conjunction with those from previous research, support the use of the JD-Next exam for both preparing and admitting future law school students

What Occupational Licensing Requirements Protect the Public? Evidence from the Legal Profession

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

Legal Education Data Deck

AccessLex prepares the Legal Education Data Deck for the use of the legal education community, policymakers, and others interested in the latest law student trends organized around our three driving principles: access, affordability, and value

Does the 1L Curriculum Make a Difference?

Georgetown Law’s Curriculum B (also known as Section 3) offers a unique opportunity to study an alternative 1L curriculum. The standard 1L curriculum has been around for decades and is still offered at the vast majority of U.S. law schools. Leaders in the legal academy often talk about experimenting with the 1L curriculum, but hardly anyone does it. Georgetown Law has. We study whether Georgetown’s Curriculum B yields measurable differences in student outcomes. Our empirical design leverages the fact that enrollment in Curriculum B is done by lottery when it is oversubscribed—meaning our study is effectively a randomized controlled trial. We measure treatment effects of Curriculum B by comparing outcomes of students who received the treatment (Curriculum B) with outcomes of students who received the placebo (Curriculum A) but wanted the treatment. Because students in both the treatment and control groups elected to enroll in Curriculum B, our empirical design overcomes the issue of selection bias. We find that taking Curriculum B decreases students’ performance in two business law electives (Corporations and Securities Regulation) and reduces the rate at which they graduate with Latin honors. In addition, we find that it increases students’ propensity to take certain public law electives and decreases their propensity to take certain business law electives. We further find that taking Curriculum B decreases students’ likelihood of working in the private sector (law firm or business/industry), increases their likelihood of working in the public sector (government or public interest) or doing a judicial clerkship, and reduces their average annual salary. At the same, however, we find no statistically significant effects on other outcomes, including students’ cumulative GPA, their chances of passing the bar exam or being employed 10 months after graduation, or their rate or amount of alumni giving

Occupational Licensing and Labor Market Mobility: Evidence from the Legal Profession

We study how state occupational licensing requirements shape labor mobility across U.S. legal markets. Drawing on newly collected data, we link variation in state bar exam waiver policies to lawyers’ license acquisitions, professional disciplinary records, and educational histories. We find that bar exam waivers increase the number of experienced lawyers obtaining a new license by 38 percent, but that the additional lawyers are subject to more professional discipline and tend to have graduated from less selective law schools. Our results suggest that state-level occupational licensing regimes can create a trade-off between the supply and quality of professionals in an industry

Student Debt, COVID-19 Relief, and Loan Forgiveness: Perspectives from Today’s Young Lawyers

Over the last few years, the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division (ABA YLD) has used data from its members to sound the alarm on student loan debt trends and the impact of student loan debt on early career attorneys who are under the age of 36 or were first admitted to practice within the last 10 years. The 2020 and 2021 Student Debt Surveys elucidated the ways in which education debt tangibly burdens relatively new J.D. recipients—most of whom are in the process of building their careers and lives. Both surveys’ results indicated that those with the highest debt balances are more often to report delaying or forgoing significant life events, (e.g., marriage, homebuying, and having children). Further, the 2021 Report demonstrated that the impacts of debt are not felt equally among all young lawyers; lawyers of color are disproportionately likely to have borrowed for their education, carry high debt balances, and see their debt balances grow after graduation. The 2024 survey results reaffirm the above findings while offering new insights regarding young lawyers’ experiences with the COVID-19 student loan repayment pause, their plans in the event of loan forgiveness, their satisfaction with loan servicers, and their mindsets regarding work-life balance. The survey results also illustrate notable differences in borrowing and debt effects by respondent characteristics, including first-generation college status. These results serve a dual purpose of both highlighting the challenges of student loan debt for young attorneys and pointing the way to potential interventions and policy solutions that could serve to relieve financial stress not only for young lawyers but also for the millions of Americans shouldering the weight of education debt. The full report provides a robust overview of the findings summarized above and offers recommendations for how we can better support early career professionals who uphold the rule of law in our society

Measuring \u27Up\u27: The Promise of Undergraduate GPA Growth in Law School Admissions

Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) scores and final undergraduate GPA (UGPA) factor heavily in admission decisions at most law schools. However, these metrics overlook other characteristics that might also correlate with law school success—such as a growth mindset— and tend to exacerbate existing racial disparities in educational attainment. Using a sample of 5,599 recent law school students from 14 law schools, we compare the predictive power of UGPA growth (the difference between students’ final and first-year UGPA) to that of final UGPA and LSAT scores in law school admissions. We find that UGPA growth is positively associated with first-year law school GPA (1L LGPA) and negatively associated with the likelihood of first-year (1L) non-transfer attrition. Furthermore, our findings indicate that contrary to LSAT score and final UGPA, UGPA growth values do not substantively vary by race/ethnicity. Our conclusion is that UGPA growth might be a valid metric to consider as institutions across the nation examine how to recruit diverse cohorts without the ability to consider race