“Reducing the Guesswork Out of Student Attrition and Bar Passage: Empowering Students Through a Numbers-based Approach by Informing Them Where They Stand Through Every Part of Their Legal Education”

Nearly every jurisdiction saw a dip in bar passage rates on the July 2014 bar exam. The national mean scaled MBE score for July 2014 was 141.47, which was also three points lower than the July 2013 score. The July 2014 number was the lowest mean scaled MBE score for a July exam since 2004, when the mean scaled MBE score was 141.2.
 
The National Conference of Bar Examiners, the organization that drafts the multiple-choice portion of the bar exam that almost every jurisdiction uses, says the significantly lower mean scaled MBE score is the result of students being “less able” to pass the exam compared to examinees in previous years.
 
The session will not debate the NCBE’s claim. Instead, it accepts what might be the new reality and explains what one institution has done and is doing to combat the current environment in which most law schools are seeing fewer and fewer graduates pass the bar exam while, simultaneously, having difficulty filling classrooms with students with LSAT scores and grades as strong as previous classes.
 
The session will continue with an explanation how administering multiple formative and summative assessments throughout courses, along with providing detailed feedback through individual and longitudinal reports, empowers students to take charge of their own learning by informing them of where they sit among their peers so that they know exactly what to work on after each assessment, before each final exam, and, ultimately, on the bar exam.
 
This presentation will detail some of the assessments administered to students, the reports generated by testing programs, and other information distributed to students, their professors and administration so that the students have specific and concrete information that clearly identifies their strengths and weaknesses.
 
Finally, this presentation will explain how institutions can use current and historical student performance data in law school and the bar exam to provide their admissions offices with good data so they can make sound decisions in the application cycle at a time when the applicant pool is potentially “less able” (to use the NCBE’s words).
 
Tommy Sangchompuphen is an associate professor at Lincoln Memorial University – Duncan School of Law, where he specializes in preparing students to pass the bar exam. Since joining LMU Law in 2012, he has helped the law school achieve an 81%, 86% and 77% first-time bar passage rates for the July 2013, February 2014 and July 2014 Tennessee bar exams, respectively. More than 91% of LMU Law’s graduates who have sat for the bar have passed the exam. The law school has achieved tremendous success in meeting ABA Standards regarding bar passage despite being a new law school and having a student body with entering undergraduate grade point averages and LSAT scores lower than other Tennessee law schools. Professor Sangchompuphen holds a B.A. in political science from Yale University, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University, and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis.
 
Randy Mathews serves as Associate Dean for Enrollment Services. Prior to joining LMU Law, Randy worked for over 18 years with BARBRI, the nation’s largest provider of law school and bar review services. Over the years, Dean Mathews held a variety of positions with BARBRI, ranging from student representative while in law school to regional vice president. In his last three years with the company, he was named Vice President of Academic Affairs because of his success with creating and managing academic and bar review programs. Dean Mathews earned a B.S. in Political Science from Spring Hill College, a J.D. from Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law, and an M.B.A. from the University of Alabama – Birmingham.