Liberty Law

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by chrisjm18, Apr 20, 2019.

Loading...
  1. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    "HUGE NEWS! The ABA just released bar pass data for 2018 which shows Liberty Law placing 7th in the nation out of 203 schools and the highest of all VA schools!"

    "Congratulations to our 2018 bar exam takers and to our INCREDIBLE faculty for their hard work and prayers! #ThisIsLiberty #WeTheChampions #LibertyLawRocks #weknewyoucoulddoit"

    Source: Liberty University School of Law.
     
  2. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    That is pretty impressive. It must have outperformed many schools that are ostensibly higher-ranked and more prestigious (in some circles at least).

    I assume that this is for the VA exam. Of course, bar exams aren't all the same. But I've never heard that Virginia's is particularly easy.

    I hope they can keep it up and this isn't just a one-off.
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  3. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    You can find the Virginia Bar pass rates by school on the VBBE website. There, you can look at the general trend. Sometimes, schools have 100% pass rates, and sometimes they have very low pass rates. Some schools have pass rates that are consistently high. It would be easier to decipher what's going on if they provided the number of people taking the exam per school for each test period.

    http://barexam.virginia.gov/bar/barstats.html#
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  4. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    I checked several rankings for the "hardest bar exams" and found Virginia to be among the top 5 or 10 hardest depending on the source. I can't speak to the reliability of these sources, but I can tell you that they all rank California at #1.
     
  5. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    Liberty for many years has been sending the most lawyers to Washington DC. I must admit l like this statistics from liberty. For many years, i have been saying that educational institutions should be ambassadors for their students. It hurts me a lot when students are being put in awkward positions to constantly defend their institutions.
     
    JBjunior and chrisjm18 like this.
  6. Nemo

    Nemo Member

    chrisjm18 likes this.
  7. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    In absolute or relative terms? Because having the most recent grads pass the bar and having the highest percentage of recent grads pass the bar is not at all the same.

    [​IMG]
     
  8. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Their Bar exam pass rate was high, but their students took the Bar exam in 15 jurisdictions. The pass rate was 100% outside of Virginia and 88% in Virginia. They're tied for third in Virginia.

    https://www.liberty.edu/news/index.cfm?PID=18495&MID=295372

    https://www.liberty.edu/journal/article/liberty-law-achieves-highest-first-time-bar-exam-pass-rate-in-school-history/
     
    SteveFoerster likes this.
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Got it. Then yes, that's impressive.
     
  10. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Countertenor and Dustin like this.
  11. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    For argument, what would have been the pass rate at Appalachian if it had the same quality of students as Harvard? My bias, it makes Liberty’s numbers even more impressive because Liberty’s students may be more similar to Appalachian than Harvard.
     
    datby98, chrisjm18 and JBjunior like this.
  12. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Another observation, Appalachian is the only school that's not based in California on the top five "worst" list. This speaks to the difficulty of the California bar but also to the poor quality of Thomas Jefferson Law and Whittier Law.
     
  13. Marcus Aurelius

    Marcus Aurelius Active Member

    It makes Liberty’s numbers even more impressive because Liberty’s students may be more similar to Appalachian than Harvard.

    Probably not. I think Appalachian is about as bottom-of-the-barrel as you can get.

    I've actually driven by the Appalachian School of law before. It's located in a very remote coal mining community. The building is a renovated old high school. It's not much to look at. The Appalachian College of Pharmacy, another standalone school is located nearby.

    Liberty is a pretty swanky school when compared to Appalachian.
     
    datby98 and chrisjm18 like this.
  14. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    I am trying to root for Appalachian with knowing nothing specific - only the general. Is it the swanky facilities that makes a difference? I was a student at liberty. My guess I could have been a student at Appalachian. Under no objective measures I could be a student at Harvard. So is Harvard results expected because it has the brightest students. The over achievers are especially liberty - and Appalachian 30% is actually 100% because 70% should not be there.
     
  15. This is a great stat but only tells part of the full picture. Liberty isn't for everyone. For most attorney's it's probably not for most. They had 44 bar takers. That's a very small class. They were smart enough to keep their classes small so that they can focus on bar passage. They are expensive, even for law school. Granted, that's somewhat to be expected from a private law school. They are still a "new" school. I expect for them to continue growing but it's going to take some time for them to get their alumni connections up. It's been talked about in prior threads...Liberty does carry a certain brand. Personally I don't have a problem with it. It is something that a student should be aware of though. Finally, bar passage has no correlation with the competency of an attorney. Period. Once you pass the bar you will never ever ever ever ever do anything like that again unless you're committing malpractice.

    For the record...I have a colleague that graduated from Liberty Law. He enjoyed it. I'm also thinking about doing their LLM. It's a great deal with the military tuition rate.
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  16. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Here are the top 15 law schools that have helped graduates land rather underwhelming (i.e. underemployment) positions:

    1. Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico: 65.69 percent
    2. University of San Francisco: 43.79 percent
    3. Inter American University of Puerto Rico: 43.48 percent
    4. Mississippi College: 42.45 percent
    5. Texas Southern University: 40.88 percent
    6. Golden Gate University: 39.76 percent
    7. Thomas Jefferson School of Law: 36.81 percent
    8. University of Puerto Rico: 36.70 percent
    9. University of La Verne: 36.21 percent
    10. Western Michigan University: 33.16 percent
    11. Charleston School of Law: 32.73 percent
    12. Arizona Summit Law School: 32.20 percent
    13. Concordia Law School: 31.03 percent
    14. Nova Southeastern University: 29.68 percent
    15. North Carolina Central University: 29.55 percent
     
  17. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    I think I might need to attend Liberty's School of Law.

    Screenshot_20210928-093855_Facebook.jpg
     
    JoshD and Futuredegree like this.
  18. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I don't think anyone with any knowledge about this field has been critical of Liberty's academic thoroughness. These results are consistent with that view.

    Not relevant to this particular thread, but Liberty was a true pioneer in DL.

    Even Liberty's staunch religious perspective would not normally be much of an issue. But the founder didn't do the school any favors in the PR department, and his son has been a disaster. I have to think things in that area are on the mend, however.
     
    JoshD, Vonnegut and chrisjm18 like this.
  19. Futuredegree

    Futuredegree Well-Known Member

    I wonder if Liberty University law school required work to empathize and incorporate religious texture into students work. Might be a bit hard with law in my personal opinion
     
  20. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    I don't see why they wouldn't require it. They do for all programs, regardless of discipline. I had to do so for my Ph.D. in CJ, including the research methods courses.

    Setting New Standards in Legal Education and Among Christian Law Schools
    Because our rigorous legal skills program is taught from a Christian worldview, we’ll not only prepare you with the core competency skills you’ll need to practice law, we’ll teach you how to integrate faith and reason into your field.
    -Liberty University School of Law
     
    Futuredegree likes this.

Share This Page