Baylor Law School Tops Bar Exam Pass Rate - Again

by Alan Hunt (254) 710-6271
Baylor Law School's winning tradition continues as its students again posted the highest passing percentage in the latest Texas Bar Exam. Results announced this week show that Baylor law students achieved a 93.51 percent pass rate for the bar exam taken in July 2005, topping the pass rates of students from the other eight law schools in the state.
Of the 77 Baylor law students who took the two-day examination, 72 passed. The overall state pass rate was 83.14 percent, with a total of 1,519 successful candidates among the 1,827 students who took the exam.
The bar exam is given twice each year and Baylor Law School has an unsurpassed record of success on the exam. Law Dean Brad Toben said the first-place result again underscores the effectiveness of Baylor Law School's distinctive program.
"This is yet again a testament to our longstanding and proven approach to the education of our students for service within a profession; a team of faculty and staff that consistently goes to the mat for our students and for this school, putting students first; and our stated mission as a school that guides us in getting the job done - not only for our students - but also for the public and the profession.
"Thanks go to each person on our team, both within and outside our school, who by their hard work, support and encouragement make the ever-continuing remarkable successes in our program possible," he added.
Baylor Law School's continued bar exam success is reflected in the U.S.News & World Report's recently released "2006 Best Graduate School" rankings. Among published statistics for the Texas law schools ranked by the publication, Baylor has the highest bar passage rate at 94.2 percent, which is just below the 94.8 percent bar passage rate of the No. 1 school in the U.S. News list, Yale University.
The publication also ranks Baylor Law's trial advocacy program as the sixth best in the nation in its survey, one spot up from last year and five places up from 2003, when it was ranked 11th. In 2002, Baylor's trial advocacy program was ranked 16th nationally. Overall, Baylor Law School is rated 52nd by U.S. News in what the publication terms its "Top 100 Schools" listing. For its 2006 rankings, the magazine evaluated 179 accredited law schools nationwide, using 12 "measures of quality."