The ABA House of Delegates vote on the proposed new bar passage standard for law schools, ABA Standard 316, at the ABA mid-year meeting this week in Miami. This is an enormously important vote with significant repercussions for legal education and the legal profession. I strongly support the proposed standard and urge those with a vote to approve it.
Since 2010, law school applications have dropped about 40%. In an effort to fill classes, the overwhelming majority of law schools, even our most selective institutions, have lowered their admissions standards. This has meant that it is much easier to get into an elite law school than it has been in decades. As top 20 schools have accepted students that, in a more competitive era, used to go to top 50 schools, top 50 schools are now admitting students that used to go to the schools ranked from 50-100. In turn, these second-tier schools are taking the kinds of students who used to attend third-tier schools, and third-tier schools are actively recruiting students with grades and test scores that would have landed them at an unranked fourth-tier school five years ago. But for the fourth-tier schools, those in the bottom quarter by selectivity, there was no lower-tier of schools from which to cherry pick students. These schools, many of which characterize themselves as “opportunity” schools, were already admitting many moderate to high risk students and had little, if any, room to go lower. Their admissions standards, in most cases, used to be carefully and honestly calibrated to admit only students with a reasonable chance of success in law school on the bar. In 2010, with perhaps a couple of exceptions, almost all ABA-Accredited law schools were complying in reasonably good faith with ABA Standard for Admissions 501, which mandates that a law school “shall not admit applicants who do not appear capable of satisfactorily completing its educational program and being admitted to the bar.” Because law schools, by and large, followed this stricture, a very high percentage of students who were admitted to law school completed their degree and passed the bar. So, in 2013 (when most students who started in 2010 took the bar), 81% of graduates of ABA-Accredited Law Schools passed the bar exam on their first try. Even in California, infamous for the difficulty of its bar exam, 71% of ABA grads passed on their first attempt.
Sadly, it is no longer the case that almost all law schools are complying in good faith with Standard 501. Dozens of law schools are now admitting substantial numbers of students at very high or extremely high risk of failure. As a direct result of significant declines in admission standards, law school attrition rates are up, and law school bar passage rates are way down. At a few of the least selective law schools, fewer than one in three students who start law school can expect to graduate and pass the bar the on the first try, and many will never pass, leaving them saddled with huge debt and little prospect of earning enough to recoup their investment. That is unacceptable in a profession that purports to hold itself to high ethical standards, and it fuels the increasingly widespread perception that law school is a scam.
The ABA Standards on Admission and Bar Passage are supposed to work in concert. The Admission standard is a non-exploitation standard. It is designed to ensure that students without a reasonable chance of success are not taken advantage of by schools willing to take their tuition. The Bar Passage standard is designed to ensure that students get what they are promised and what they are paying for – a legal education that adequately prepares them for the practice of law and gives them the knowledge and skills required to earn admission to the bar.
If a law school admits only applicants who are capable of earning a J.D. and passing the bar, and the law school is providing those students a sound legal education, designed, at least in part, to prepare students to pass the bar, then a school should have a bar pass rate where a substantial majority of students pass the bar. Based on my analysis of recent pass rates for repeat takers, a law school with a 60% first time pass rate will be able to meet the new standard of 75% passing within two years of graduation. Every ABA-Accredited law school in America should have at least a 60% first time bar pass rate. But right now, many don’t. And that is why there is significant opposition to the new standard. Nearly half the law school Deans in the country recently signed a letter asking the ABA to hold off on the new standard. Many of these Deans have good reason to be worried. The Deans know that the weakest class ever admitted to most law schools was the class of 2014, the class about to graduate and take the bar this summer. And at many schools, the classes of 2015 and 2016 were just as weak or weaker. Based on the results on the bar exams in 2015 and 2016, and the strength of the classes in the pipeline, between 20 to 30 law schools will likely have a first-time bar pass rate in 2017 of below 60%, placing them in jeopardy of not making 75% within two years.
The fact that a number of law schools are likely to be unable to meet the standard is not a reason to defer or withdraw the standard. The standard needs to be made tougher immediately because the current standard has proven completely ineffective as a means of regulating either admissions or the quality of legal education. In fact, while bar passage rates have dropped sharply over the past three years, with many law schools posting first-time pass rates well below 50%, not a single ABA-Accredited law school has been found to be out of compliance with the current Standard 316 during that time.
The ABA has recently started to crack down on law schools with exploitative admissions standards, ordering specific remedial action at Ave Maria, publicly censuring Valparaiso, and placing Charlotte on probation for non-compliance with Standard 501. In addition, the ABA declined initially to grant provisional accreditation to UNT in part over concern about non-compliance with Standard 501. But these actions have not deterred many other schools from admitting students with similar credentials to those that the ABA has found did not meet Standard 501. In fact, as detailed in a just-released update to Law School Transparency’s State of Legal Education, there are more law schools than ever admitting 25% or more of very high and extremely high risk students. This suggests that until there is an effective bar passage standard, the risk of continued exploitative admissions practices remains high.
In their last ditch effort to derail the passage of this new standard, the Deans have cited the results of the July 2016 California bar exam, noting that schools with strong admission standards and good reputations, like UC Hastings and Chapman, had first-time pass rates in the 50s, which would place them in jeopardy of not meeting the new standard. But what the Deans fail to mention is that graduates of a law school with much lower admission standards, Cal Western, had a first time pass rate of 61%. Cal Western’s entering class of 2013 had an LSAT profile of 154/151/148 at the 75th/50th and 25th percentile. Cal Western’s results prove that a school can admit a reasonable number of high risk students (but not very high or extremely high) and still achieve respectable results on even the toughest bar exam. Incidentally, Cal Western has a very diverse student body, with 36% of students in 2013 identifying as racial minorities. Dire predictions that the new bar passage standard will do grave harm to efforts to diversify the profession are unsupported.
The exploitation of college graduates who dream of becoming lawyers, but have no demonstrated aptitude for the study of law, needs to stop. Law school is not for everyone. Law schools should admit only students with reasonable capacity for the study of law, and give them an education which gives them a strong chance to pass the bar. If they can't do this, they don't deserve to be accredited by the ABA.
Thank you, David, for as illuminative, fair-minded, and relatively judgment-free an account of this history as is possible.
Thanks, Stan. It is so rare to hear a genuine compliment these days. I appreciate it.
Great post, David.
What do you think of the incoming ABA president's proposal to basically gut the section of legal ed and form a new committee to oversee all but accreditation, which the section would handle? I don't think this model,would work, but the section brought this on itself by moving so slowly to address the crisis in legal ed and sticking to the status quo.
ABA also cutting its budget 10% across the board, cutting staff, etc. some of the section changes may be related to $$, too.
The ABA is a national law school accreditation organization and should promulgate standards that do not have a significantly discriminatory effect on different states. Proposed Standard 316 punishes schools that enroll a significant percentage of Black and Hispanic students with lower GPA/LSAT statistics, but who significantly outperform outcome predictions on the only standardized bar examination section taken by almost every law student in the United States, the MBE. Compare, for instance, Southwestern in California with SUNY Buffalo. Southwestern admitted 20% Black and Hispanic students compared with SUNY's 8.4%. Southwestern's LSAT/GPA statistics were significantly lower than SUNY's. However, on the July 2016 bar examination Southwetern's students had a mean MBE score of 1406, above the national MBE mean, and would have scored a 74% passage rate on the July 2016 New York bar examination. SUNY had a 73% passage rate even though it had few minority students and higher LSAT/GPA statistics. This means that Southwestern provided its students with a significant "value added" education – students outperformed their entering statistics. However, under the proposed Standard 316, Southwestern will lose ABA accreditation since it only had a California passage rate of 38%. Everyone knows the disconnect. The ABA standard is based on states' MBE cut scores that range from 122-145, not on the quality of education provided by a law school or on comparative outcome measures on the standardized MBE test.
The House should reject proposed Standard 316 for two reasons. First, the standard is unfair to schools in states with extremely high cut scores. For instance, the proposed standard in California, based on the July 2016 results would lead to the loss of 57% of Hispanic law students and 58% of Black law students attending California ABA law schools even if those schools' students score higher on the MBE than the national MBE mean. Second, there is a way to mollify the differences in state cut scores without destroying diversity in the profession. A second standard can be added to the Council's proposal when the measure is referred back to the Council. The second standard would state that a law school is in compliance if for two out of the last three years a school's mean MBE score is within a chosen standard deviation of the national MBE mean. This standard will be based on a school's outcome measure of the quality of students' performance on the MBE, not on a decision by a state supreme court on how tightly it will create a monopoly of access to the profession by setting a very high cut score.
My proposed ABA MBE standard should be welcomed by Law School Transparency since it will now provide students with much more information about the quality of the law school they are choosing to attend because it will provide not only a bar passage rate, but a national comparison of schools' outcome measures on the MBE standardized test. This is a non-paternalistic solution because it respects college graduates' ability to look at information (bar passage rates/MBE mean scores/jobs data, etc) before selecting a school.
Schools, like Southwestern, the University of San Francisco, and the University of Hastings, that provide high numbers of minority students a chance to enter the profession and provide an education which results in a higher than national mean MBE outcome measure, should be celebrated rather than thrown out of the ABA club.
Bill Patton –
Reasonable people can differ over whether the California bar is setting their passing standard unreasonably high. (Reasonable people might also believe that other states bars have set their passing standards unreasonably low.) That is a legitimate matter for California law school Deans to take up with the California Supreme Court and State Bar of California. Their argument that the cut score is unreasonably high will be enhanced if the ABA imposes this new standard and schools which are demonstrably practicing reasonable admission standards and providing a solid legal education can't meet the standard. But I disagree with the idea that California law schools are being "punished". These schools know where they are located and they know, or should know, what it takes to get graduates to pass the bar exam. Southwestern's first time pass rate has been over 60% many times in the past, and they can do it again. For example, Southwestern's first-time pass rate was 73.5% in 2013. USF's first-time pass rate on the California bar was 74.1% in 2013 and 62.1% in 2014. That was before both schools dramatically lowered admission standards. And they didn't lower standards in an effort to increase diversity. They lowered standards to stay in business.
Your claim that passing Standard 316 would lead to 58% fewer African-Americans and 57% fewer Hispanics attending law school in California is based on two wildly unrealistic assumptions. First, you assume that every single school that did poorly on the July 2016 bar exam would lose its accreditation and immediately close, an idea wholly detached from reality. Second, you assume that none of the black or Hispanic students currently enrolled at any of the law schools that you predict will close would enroll at any other law school. This is also a completely preposterous assumption. What is far more likely is that two or three of the weakest, most exploitative schools (Thomas Jefferson, Whittier, and Golden Gate come to mind) may be forced to close. This will actually strengthen the remaining law schools in California, as the top half of students who might have gone to the schools that fail will likely choose to attend a competitor. The best students from Thomas Jefferson might go to Cal Western. The best students from Whittier might go to Western State, and the best students from Golden Gate might choose to attend USF, for example. As for the impact on diversity, everyone in legal academia knows that law schools all compete for every reasonably qualified minority applicant, so there is every reason to believe that all of the minority students with reasonable prospects of success would be accepted at another school in California. The only potential impact on minority enrollment is an entirely positive one – the minority students with very poor prospects for success who are currently being admitted to schools with exploitative admissions practices might find, as they did before the law school crisis began, that no ABA law school will admit them. For those students who are determined to go to law school and practice in California, there are many state accredited schools that will take virtually any college graduate. For minority students who have a reasonable chance of passing some bar, but not the California bar, they can apply to a law school in a state with an easier bar.
Excellent post, David!
David,
I agree with you that reasonable people can differ on these difficult issues. For instance, a reasonable person could agree with you that students should be supplied sufficient and accurate information from which to make a decision whether and to what school to apply. Reasonable people might agree that law schools should be held accountable for providing their students with a sufficiently good legal education so that they can perform near the mean of all ABA law students on a standardized bar examination. However, reasonable people can disagree on whether ABA accreditation should hinge on the monopolistic tendencies of state supreme courts. For instance, what if the California Supreme Court decided that based upon a short-term dip in the number of legal jobs in California that it will raise the state's cut score from 144 to 149? Now assume that all CA law schools maintain their LSAT/GPA's, curriculum, tuition, etc. And each of those law schools' mean MBE scores meets the national MBE median. Assume that based on that 5 point cut score raise now 15 CA ABA law schools will score below a 60% passage rate for several years and lose ABA accreditation. Under your and the ABA Council's positions, this result is justified based solely on state bar passage percentages. I simply disagree with you and the Council on the nature of this litmus test.
Your optimism for higher bar passage rates on the California bar for schools that performed lower than 60% on the July 2016 California exam is pure speculation. First, those schools' historic bar passage rates are based upon a different California bar examination that did not add additional substantive law that is now tested. Second, it does not take into account changes coming to the California bar examination that many argue will further lower the bar passage rates such as increasing the weight of the MBE from 35% to 50% and shortening the test from three days to two days. The fact is that we do not know how these changes will impact bar passage rates of California schools or subsets of students attending those schools.
Similarly, others have argued that the bar passage standard should not be changed until we know the effects on the many new jurisdictions that now take the UBE. Reasonable people can agree that changes in the bar passage standard need be made but that we need more time to determine the effects before those changes are implemented.
Of course, this measure must be adopted! The cries that "Proposed Standard 316 punishes schools that enroll a significant percentage of Black and Hispanic students" is really offensive and racist.
There is another reason to move forward, fast. And ENFORCE THE RULES.
Let's take a walk down memory lane, and consider these posts in the FL, not so long ago:
"August 20, 2014
The Coming Lawyer Shortage
In this post, I will argue that within a few years there will be a shortage of entry-level lawyers. Law school enrollments have dropped so much that the demand for new lawyers will far exceed the supply of law school graduates. In a relatively short time, we will have gone from an environment where employers received hundreds of resumes for every open position to one where employers might not receive any resumes at all."
"April 10, 2014
#1 – Intro – Enroll Today!
Why 2017-2018 Will Be a Fantastic Time to Graduate from Law School
A few years ago while working at a law school, I accidentally spiked our daily admissions numbers. What did I do? I unthinkingly threw in the word “today” by telling people to apply “today” to receive a fee waiver. I didn’t mean that today was the only day to do it, but that’s what the recipients of the e-mail believed. Which meant we received about 25 responses when we would have normally received only 5 or 6.
Why am I telling you this? Because I want prospective law students to know that this time I mean it. Enroll today or you will miss out on what might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Namely, the chance to graduate from law school in 2017-2018, which will likely be one of the best times ever to graduate from law school."
We about six months away from the "likely best times ever to graduate from law school" – how many were induced to apply and enroll (in a climate of disappearing standards") based on the representation of a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to enroll hawked in these pages?
Readers of the FL will remember how some begged and pleaded for these forward looking statements to stop. We all remember, one hopes, how some of these actors doubled down, used profanities at those who objected, and basically argued over and over that by NOW law firms would be begging for law school graduates to fill all their unmet demand.
We see the result.
Is enough ever going to be enough?
Bill – I don't think students attend law school to score near the national mean on one portion of the bar exam. They attend law school to become lawyers, and that requires passing the bar. Changes to bar exams are generally announced well in advance giving law schools the chance to adjust.
Excellent responses, David.
I agree with anon that the idea that blacks and Hispanics will be harmed by the new standard is extraordinarily racist, as is the exploitive behavior of the schools that target minority students with poor credentials through pipeline programs and the like.
Given that the incoming ABA president has signaled she wants major changes to the section of legal ed, I would be surprised if this does not pass.
David
Thank you for these comments:
" These schools know where they are located and they know, or should know, what it takes to get graduates to pass the bar exam."
"Changes to bar exams are generally announced well in advance giving law schools the chance to adjust. "
Indeed, although I think you would deny it, it seems there is some recognition that law faculties do affect the performance of students on the bar exam (and thus, bear some responsibility, beyond the admissions office, for the failure of some law schools).
I don't want to accuse anyone of being a racist, certainly not Bill Patton. I have been accused myself for being a racist for advocating for higher standards, and it is a very hurtful accusation. There are plenty of people of good will who have genuine concern about the impact of the proposed standard and whether it will set back the progress that law schools have made in increasing diversity. Although i think those fears are overblown that does not mean they are not sincerely held. As for the law schools that have been taking advantage of poorly qualified minority students, I don't think they are racist either. These schools also take advantage of poorly qualified white students as well. But I do believe that some of these schools are cynically using diversity as an excuse to justify predatory admission practices.
Good points, David, i am sure Bill. Whom I do not know, is not a racist, and you are correct that white students with poor credentials are hurt, too, so why bring race into the discussion of the proposed standard at all? I see it as a last gasp effort to justify their position.
We all know that certain persons, namely, persons who are not Democrats, are routinely labeled "racist." Not so hurtful then, though, right?
Ok, here we don't have a statement that persons who have had a challenging upbringing (obstacles to a good education and home life, low SES, etc.) score lower on certain standardized tests (for which, more affluent individuals, like most of those who populate legal academia, are groomed from early childhood).
Here, we have a blatant statement that "Black and Hispanic students" are inherently inferior (i.e., the inference is that white students who have similar SES profiles do better because they are white).
THis sort of statement is racist. I don't know if the speaker is racist or not, but, David, you seem want to condemn the system but never the individuals within it. Why?
Anon –
I am not sure where you are reading the "blatant statement that 'Black and Hispanic' students are inherently inferior." What we know is that black and Hispanic students have lower LSAT scores on average than white and Asian students. So, if law schools decide to raise minimum LSAT scores, that will exclude proportionally more black and Hispanic students. The question is whether this will have the unintended effect of excluding a significant number of minority students who might reasonably be expected to succeed, or if it will largely result in excluding students who would be better of not going to law school since they are very likely to fail. I tend to think it is the latter, but there are reasonable people who are worried that it may be the former. Many diversity advocates are also concerned about overreliance on LSAT scores, which are admittedly an imperfect predictor, even if they are the best predictor we may have at the time an admission decision must be made. But until a school can demonstrate that it can get a reasonable percentage of students with very low predictors to pass the bar (an experiment that the University of North Texas is involved in right now) I think schools are justified in relying fairly heavily on LSAT scores, as they have for many years.
I am perfectly willing to criticize actions or words which are reprehensible, but I generally try to avoid "condemning individuals" (or groups for that matter) and I don't lightly attribute bad motives to people I don't know. I try to model civility in my writing, although it doesn't seem to have much effect on many of the commenters.
Please cite the study that compares the performance of persons of different races, on standardized tests, that controls for SES.
If you are correct that "black and Hispanic students have lower LSAT" scores BECAUSE of their "race" (as you must know, "Hispanic" refers to country of origin, not race), then the ETS and other purveyors of tests like the LSAT and bar exam are in big, big trouble.
Of course, folks have been trying for 40 years to prove these tests are "racially" biased. Folks have also attempted to prove the tests are "culturally biased" with a bit more success, but that goes to SES, not race.
Answer a direct question: do you think that this is a racist statement: "blacks have lower LSAT scores because they are black."
If so, then anyone who blatantly suggests as much is making a racist statement, and should be called out. (I have no problem with the statement that folks who do not have the elite backgrounds that most law professors enjoy need a hand: but that isn't a racist statement at all, that is a fair and objective statement that accounts for SES and doesn't divide people by trying to whip up the virtue signaling tendencies of elite law professors).
If you think this statement is true – "blacks have lower LSAT scores because they are black" – then please, again, cite your support that blacks are, by reason of their race, inherently likely to score lower on the LSAT when compared with "whites."
IMHO, the statement ""blacks have lower LSAT scores because they are black" is racist, and that is exactly what was implied above.
BTW, it is likely the point is missed here.
WHen elites pound their chests and pretend they are only in it for "the children" or "the minorities" watch out!
If the speaker above had said the proposed standard will disproportionately affect persons of a lower SES, then I would not object. But, the implication that the standard is racist, or at least will have a racist effect, is clear, and untoward.
75% is a "C." How many folks reading this will be happy if their little school aged child brings home a "C"? Didn't think so…. I recall my T-2 law school's bar passage rate fell to 89% in 1992. There was tremendous panic and hand wringing. There was outrage. My school didn't fight the standards. It tightened enrollment credentials and decreased class sizes. Bar Passage rates returned to the 90s.
California bar pass rates in the 1980s were similar.
Then, the cry was "antitrust violation" … the Bar, it was said, was intentionally holding down the numbers to make sure the market stayed robust.
People in this milieu seem to have no institutional memories, they seem to be influenced by politics more than actual facts and they seem to posture rather than dig in, study and actually come to some reasoned conclusions.
IMHO, the fact that law schools are lowering admissions standards to stay in business is disgusting, and the tale is told when the bar is taken (hint: ability to pass the bar is not based on race). The DOE may be expected to back off, but, don't count on it. One hopes that federal loan eligibility is finally, at long last, withdrawn from the worst of the worst.
If the ABA wants to even stay in the game, it better act, and act fast.
Just read the California Dean's letter, pleading to lower the standards!
Here is the anti trust violation, folks.
The top rated schools in California have NO REASON to so plead: their pass rates are always acceptable.
One hopes that letter is ignored by the California Supreme Court; it is a transparent effort to save the bottom feeders (whose "diversity" candidates, btw, will be far better off in better schools, once the bottom feeders are closed and thereby prevented from feasting any longer on federal student loans.)
Anyone who doubts that schools have lowered standards to stay in businesss has never sat in a faculty meeting where the Dean and admissions people explain what they are doing and why to a silent faculty, which might not like it in terms of school rep, and know they will have to work harder in the classroom, but like the six figure paycheck so go along with the plan.
The obviousness of the situation is so clear. Those who think they can push a different version are dealing with alt facts.
For many minorities with less than stellar LSATs, the best course of action may be a state school or HBCU, many of which charge lower tuition. If anyone is really concerned about them, they should be concerned about the debt they rack up too.
I agree with Mr. Frakt that some schools have been exploitive. But I think a standard set on bar pass rates isn't really the right remedy. The 75% standard (or a 60% standard) is both overinclusive and underinclusive.
Underinclusive because a high-end school can comply with the standard by admitting lots of extremely low risk students (say, with LSATs over 160) and still have 10 or 20% of their class consist of students with almost no hope of passing the bar.
Overinclusive because a school with lots of medium-risk students (say, in the 150s) can run afoul of the standard pretty easily, especially in a state with a high cut score. Now, if you think that these student's bar-pass rates are the school's fault, you might not see a problem with this. But I think that if you are smart enough to get a score in the 150s then the Bar is your business.
Furthermore, I think the real crisis that motivates Mr. Frakt is NOT that law schools are not doing enough to prepare their graduates for the Bar; in fact, lower-end schools have raped and pillaged their curriculum to serve the Great God of Bar Prep. Instead, the problem is that schools are admitting students with a minimal chance of passing the Bar. The 75% standard would punish those schools, but would also ensnare more respectable schools in its net.
So what's my alternative? First of all, let's run a study and figure out: exactly what level of LSAT equals a truly minimal chance of passing the Bar? THOSE are the people we don't want in law school, not the 150-LSAT student who will pass the Bar if she works at it. So let's say for the sake of argument that a student with a score of 145 has a minimal chance of passing- let's say for the sake of argument, one in four (I'm making up this number, it could be higher, could be lower).
So part of the ABA's rule should be: "Generally, law schools should not admit students with an LSAT of 145 (or whatever LSAT score leads to a pass rate so low as to be minimal, which I think should be somewhere below 50 percent).
Having said that, I of course think there should be exceptions: a school may have developed a way to figure out which 145s will pass the Bar. So here's how I'd put flexiblity in the system: "Any student below 145 [or again, whatever score is the cutoff] will receieve a X% law school tuition refund if they fail the Bar." This rule tells schools: we'll let you gamble on a low-LSAT student for whatever reason you choose, but know that if they flunk the Bar you bear part of the financial risk. (The only reason I don't support a full refund is to discourage students from gaming the system).
Maybe some sort of qualitative auditing, as opposed to strictly quantitative auditing, would be suitable for evaluating schools in some circumstances. Require schools to provide (anonymized if necessary) actual final exams by at-risk 3Ls to show just how well they've counteracted initial indicia of bar failure. These schools insist that they can bring low-performing students up to snuff, I think seeing how they write final exams would provide some evidence of that.
Twbb: schools must provide exams and actual students answers with grades as part of the ABA reaccreditaion process. Team members spend hours reading samples of same to ascertain rigor of the exams and quality of the essays. I have been on many teams, so to fourth tier schools, and never remember exams or essays being an issue.
Fascinating! Thanks Leo, I did not know that. I would have assumed someone who scored a 138 on the LSAT might not be able to coherently write but maybe that's wrong.
No, twbb, you may not be wrong. My point is that the team looks at exams not to see if everyone did well, that will never to be case. They look to see if there was appropriate rigor to the questions asked and if grades reflected quality of work. What we would. It want to see is an exam that was too easy or students who wrote bad papers getting better grades than they deserved. I have never seen that and not heard of any school getting cited by the ABA for exams that are too easy. There will also be those who do,poorly and fail.
". I have never seen that and not heard of any school getting cited by the ABA for exams that are too easy."
Oh well, that resolves it. The ABA to the rescue; right on the case!