July 2005 California Bar results!

And they AREN'T pretty for D/L schools.

Only three D/L schools posted first time passage rates of 20% or better:

NWCU (my personal favorite) 20%
Oak Brook led the pack at 27%
and Concord with the greatest number of applicants came in at 23%

Pretty dismal showing overall. Taft had but one applicant who (unfortunately) failed.

www.calbar.ca.gov

 

The pass rates for DL schools (21.8 % overall) were certainly unimpressive. But the numbers were also unimpressive in absolute terms:

Total number of successful bar candidates......4,072
Number from D/L schools..................................23

I applaud California for approving alternative pathways to law licensure. But in practice, only a handful of people actually benefit from the existence of the DL route. So it's not surprising that other state bar associations haven't tried to follow California's lead. They probably perceive D/L law schools as an experiment that has not proven particularly successful (at least so far).

 

I wish more data were available regarding the Washington State clerkship program. It appears to be much more structured than the Californian system and seems to have a pretty solid success rate.