Rate of People Passing the California State Bar Holds Steady

Story first appeared in the Sacramento Business Journal.

A total of 4,635 people passed the July 2011 California State Bar exam, a pass rate of 54.8 percent, state bar officials announced late Friday.

That’s the same pass rate as the July 2010 exam. The highest pass since 1951 is 63.2 percent for the July 1994 test; the low, 28.1 percent for a test in the spring of 1986.


Successful applicants who have satisfied other requirements for admission to the State Bar of California may take the attorney’s oath individually or participate in admissions ceremonies held throughout the state in December.

Applicants must have passed the multistate professional responsibility exam, received confirmation of a positive moral character and not owe back family or child support payments.

Preliminary statistics show 8,456 applicants took the July 2011 test. Almost three-quarters — 71.9 percent — were first-time takers. The passing rate for first-timers was 69 percent.

The passing rate for the 2,376 applicants repeating the exam was 18 percent.

Pass rates were highest — 76 percent of first-timers — among applicants who went to American Bar Association -sanctioned schools in California. The same rate for students from ABA-sanctioned schools outside California was 66 percent.

The UC Davis School of Law and University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law are the only ABA-sanctioned law schools in the Sacramento region.

The passing rate drops precipitously when schools are not ABA-sanctioned.

Pass rates for California accredited schools (but not ABA) among first-timers was 35 percent. It was 31 percent for students from unaccredited distance-earning programs, 16 percent for unaccredited facilities and 14 percent at correspondence schools.