Fineout article omits FAMU Law’s 82.97% overall bar passage rate

The FAMU College of Law has achieved an overall bar passage rate that exceeds the rate that the American Bar Association (ABA) requires for accreditation. But you won’t read about that in the recent article written by Associated Press (AP) reporter Gary Fineout that appears on the Miami Herald website.

The ABA Accreditation Committee released a preliminary report from a site evaluation team visit to the FAMU law school during March 25-28, 2012. Fineout rushed to put a negatively slanted article on the document on the AP wire.

Fineout wrote that “the 31-page report points out that 30 percent of the students admitted either do not graduate the school or do not pass the bar exam.” That information came from finding #59 on page 17 of the report. But Fineout’s article, as it appeared on the Miami Herald’s website, declined to mention the information from finding #58 on that same page.

FAMU reported updated data to the ABA after receiving its Florida Bar passage results from February and July 2012. According to the report, that “revised the number of non-persisters/never attempted to 53 of 694 graduates, or 7.6%.” Fineout’s article ignored that information.

FAMU’s 2007-2011 overall bar passage rate was 79.04 percent based upon the data from the site visit. It went up to 82.97 percent after FAMU submitted the updated data.

A 75 percent overall bar passage rate meets the requirements explained in Interpretation 301-6 of the ABA accreditation standards.

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. That means FAMU is currently doing even better than it did when it the ABA made the initial decision to grant it full accreditation.

The report states that "the revised data for ultimate bar pass rates are: 90% for 2007; 83.33% for 2008; 81.25% for 2009; 79.65% for 2010; and 81.69% for 2011. The overall revised ultimate bar pass rate for 2007-2011 is 82.97%."

The ABA report listed a total of three areas of noncompliance, but none of them cited the minimum bar passage rate explained by Interpretation 301-6 because FAMU is in compliance with that requirement.

The biggest of the three areas of noncompliance mentioned by the ABA report spoke about concerns over the “a high attrition rate among students, a very high attrition rate of readmitted students who have previously been academically dismissed, an extremely low bar passage rate for students who graduate with a GPA of 2.40 or below, and a high percentage of unemployed graduates seeking employment as a percentage of graduates whose status was known nine months after graduation.”

When it comes to the known employment rates of FAMU Law graduates, the report said that 63 percent of the Class of 2009 was employed within nine months. It was 64.99 percent for the Class of 2010 and 80.91 percent for the Class of 2011.

The remaining two areas of noncompliance focused on professional skills training and course offerings.

Since the release of the September preliminary report, FAMU Law has been working to address the concerns cited by hiring additional staff and implementing new programs to prepare students for the bar exam.  In addition, the COL has provided an additional level of professional development for faculty, revised promotion and tenure rules, enhanced advising processes and boosted recruitment efforts.

“We believe the new measures, as well as the addition of staff, will work to strengthen our program,” said LeRoy Pernell, dean of the FAMU College of Law. “We will move forward with addressing the specific ABA concerns.”

Read the full ABA report on FAMU Law here.