JAIMIE FRANKLIN
News Assistant
Pepperdine’s School of Law achieved the fifth highest passage rate on the California Bar Exam administered in July among American Bar Association-approved California schools, with 84 percent of first time takers passing the exam.
Stanford, UCLA, University of Southern California and UC Berkeley rounded out the top five, with UC Hastings as the only other California school achieving more than an 80 percent passage rate.
“There’s no question that our students are competitive with the very best students at the very best schools,” Dr. Douglas Kmiec, law professor, said. “To have this type of a pass rate is a tribute to the excellence of the teaching and confirmation of the selectivity of the admission committee to those students applying and being admitted to law school.”
Jim Gash, associate dean for Student Life, agrees.
“I think this shows that our students are as prepared as their counterparts to succeed in the practice of law,” Gash said. “It gets Pepperdine alumni into important positions in the legal and business community.”
Pepperdine also out-performed several prestigious out-of state law schools on the California Bar, as well, including Yale, Northwestern, Georgetown and Boston University, among others.
This success follows the achievement of the February 2006 exam, in which Pepperdine had the highest pass rate of any California school, although the total number of students taking the exam was much less.
According to Gash, the California Bar is the most difficult exam in the country. Of all students that took the exam last year, only 51 percent passed, including 67 percent of first-time takers.
The exam consists of 18 hours of testing spread out over three days, including multiple choice and essay questions and performance questions that test an applicant’s ability to complete tasks that a beginning lawyer should be able to handle. Students are tested in 13 different subject areas, which will increase to 15 in July 2007. Subject matter includes federal constitutional law, criminal law and procedure, evidence, trusts and professional responsibility, according to the State Bar Web site.
“I think [passing the exam] is the single most important step that a student has to take to become a lawyer,” Gash said. “You can’t practice law unless you pass a bar. It’s their window into the legal profession.”
Every subject on the exam is a required course at the School of Law. Coupled with electives that allow students to specialize in certain areas of law, interest and skill are developed simultaneously.
“Anyone familiar with our curriculum knows that students aren’t attending lectures,” Kmiec said. “The type of legal instruction here is not laid back lecture and memory; it is very much active learning and thinking.”
Gash said it is more than simply course work that sets Pepperdine law students apart from students at other universities.
“We have a different focus than many other law schools in emphasizing the ethics and values and our Christian mission,” he said. “The other aspect is the accessibly and interest of our professors…. There is a high level of interaction between students and faculty.”
Jeff Boyd, a third-year law student, said the teaching style of professors is helpful in preparing students to pass the exam.
“Most schools don’t teach to the bar but most teachers here point out how California stands on each issue,” Boyd said.
Success on the exam also improves the prestige and image of Pepperdine as a whole.
“It helps the university reputation when any one of our schools has positive reports on the accomplishments of students,” Professor Gregory Ogden said.
“The average reader just sees the name Pepperdine and associates it with other parts of the university as well.”
But central to this is the continued success of Pepperdine law students.
“We have set a goal of finishing as one of the top five California schools each year,” Gash said.
“We met this goal this year and are optimistic that the current group of third-year students can achieve the same results, if not better.”
02-01-2007
