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%

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

Black First-Year Student Enrollment Plummets at Harvard Law

This academic year, only 19 Black students enrolled in Harvard Law's first-year class. This is the lowest number of Black first-year law students at Harvard since 1965.

Recent Books of Interest to African American Scholars

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. The books included are on a wide variety of subjects and present many different points of view.

While Diversity Among College-Educated Adults Increases, Diversity in the Teacher Workforce Lags Behind

A new study has found that while diversity has grown among America's college-educated adults , diversity in the country's teacher workforce is lagging behind.

Soyica Diggs Colbert Appointed Interim Provost at Georgetown University

A Georgetown faculty member for more than a decade, Dr. Colbert has been serving as the inaugural vice president for interdisciplinary studies and the Idol Family Professor in the department of Black studies and the department of performing arts.

Featured Jobs