The 68.1 percent first-try passage rate is the highest since the reestablished FAMU law school opened in 2002. Back in July 2008, the school had a 67.9 percent first-try passage rate.
A news article by Orlando Sentinel reporter Denise-Marie Ordway stated that: “More than 30 percent of the students entering the FAMU law school do not graduate or pass the Florida Bar exam, even after multiple attempts.” But Ordway failed to specify the year(s) for that data.
Many FAMU law students take the bar exam two to three times
before passing. For example, in its early years, FAMU Law had the following
overall passage rates: June 2005, 70.6 percent; February 2006, 71.4 percent; July 2006, 70.3 percent;
February 2007, 70.9 percent; and July 2007, 81.3 percent.
A 75 percent overall bar passage rate meets the requirements
of the American Bar Association (ABA). By the time the ABA made its ruling on
whether to grant FAMU Law full accreditation in 2009, the school had an overall
passage rate of 77 percent.
Ordway’s article also quoted a recent ABA report that said: “Certainly,
[the FAMU College of Law] is admitting students who, by numerical predictors at
least, could easily be identified as being at risk of either failing to graduate
or failing the bar exam.”
Ordway did not mention the fact that back in February 2012,
there was only a 2.7 percentage difference between the first-try passage rates of
FAMU and the University of Florida (UF). FAMU’s first try passage rate was 65.5
percent on that exam and UF’s was 68.2 percent.