How Well Do Graduates of Law Schools at HBCUs Perform on Bar Examinations?

The American Bar Association recently released data on the performance of graduates of member law schools on state bar examinations. The statistics show than nearly 90 percent of all 2015 law school graduates had passed a state bar examination within two years of graduating from law school.

How did the law schools at the nation’s historically Black universities compare to the national average? All were below the national average but more than 80 percent of all 2015 law school graduates of both North Carolina Central University and Texas Southern University passed the bar within two years.

  • North Carolina Central University: 82.3%
  • Texas Southern University: 80.8%
  • Florida A&M University: 78.3%
  • Southern University: 76.8%
  • Howard University: 72.9%
  • University of the District of Columbia: 64.7%

For students who graduated from law school in 2017, 77.2 percent passed a bar examination in their first attempt. Here is the data for first-time bar passage rates at the law schools at historically Black universities:

  • Howard University: 77.5%
  • Texas Southern University: 60.0%
  • Southern University: 57.8%
  • North Carolina Central University 57.1%
  • Florida A&M University: 51.2%
  • University of the District of Columbia: 38.5%

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