These US law schools crushed the bar exam in 2024

By Karen Sloan

March 13 (Reuters) - Harvard Law School posted the highest first-time bar pass rate in 2024, data from the American Bar Association shows, as exam results trended up nationwide.

All but 13 of the 608 Harvard law grads who took the attorney licensing exam for the first time last year were successful, for a pass rate of 97.86%.

Right on Harvard’s heels was Duke Law School, with a 97.48% first-time pass rate, followed by the University of Chicago Law School at 97.42%, and New York University School of Law at 96.72%.

The ABA on Wednesday released a trove of bar exam data detailing national results and figures for the 197 individual U.S. law schools it accredits. Those figures show that nearly 83% of juris doctor graduates from ABA-accredited law schools who took the bar for the first time passed — up more than three percentage points over the 79% first-time pass rate in 2023. It’s the highest national first-time pass rate since 2020, when 84% of takers passed.

Harvard’s first-time pass rate increased more than one percentage point from 2023 — the school had the ninth-highest pass rate that year, when the University of Michigan landed at No. 1 with a pass rate of 97.27% A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment Thursday on the school’s latest results.

The eight schools with the highest 2024 first-time pass rates are all in the so-called T-14 — the 14 highest ranked schools according to U.S. News & World Report. But three Texas law schools outside the T-14 landed among the 15 schools with the highest 2024 pass rates.

Texas A&M University School of Law had a first-time pass rate of 95.98%, followed by the University of Texas Law School at 95.62%, and Baylor University School of Law at 94.92%.

Also among the top 15 was Belmont University College of Law at No. 13 with a first-time pass rate of 95%. Belmont is ranked No. 91 by U.S. News, but the Nashville school consistently outperforms higher-ranking schools on the bar exam. Belmont Law Dean Alberto Gonzales, who was the U.S. Attorney General from 2005 to 2007, said last year that the recipe for the school's success is not complicated: It admits students "who we believe will be successful in our program and in passing the bar exam if the student does the work."

Read more:

Bar exam pass rates in US rose as race gaps narrowed in 2024, ABA data shows

These US law schools had the highest bar pass rates in 2023