Capital Graduates Meet Great Success on Ohio Bar Exam!

October 26, 2007

Capital University Law School alumni achieved an 89% first-time passing rate on the July 2007 Ohio bar exam. This is a 2 percentage point increase from last July and above the state average for first-time takers.

“Capital graduates continue to pass at a high rate. Their hard work and the dedication of our faculty and administration are paying off,” said Dean Jack A. Guttenberg. “As a community, we are enhancing the value of their degrees and their success on the exam means they can begin their careers at the earliest possible moment.”

The Law School Strategic Plan calls for the school to be “above the state average for first-time takers on the Ohio bar examination and annual improvement in the percentage of all takers passing the bar.” In four out of the last six administrations of the bar exam, Capital’s first-time takers have performed above the state average. In the last five administrations of the July bar exam, Capital’s overall pass rate has climbed 27 percentage points.

Capital was one of the first law schools in the country to hire a professor of Bar Services, Yvonne L. Twiss, L’98, and offer a for-credit bar course — Advanced Bar Studies. This course has become a model for other law schools. It provides students with an intensive, substantive review of selected material routinely tested on the Ohio bar exam and uses problems and exercises in a bar exam format to better familiarize students with what to expect on the exam.

Advanced Bar Studies is just one program that has been implemented to help students be successful. The law school faculty also has:

• Created small section courses for all first-year students, providing each student with one-to-one faculty interaction;
• Scheduled all first-year and bar-tested courses three days per week, providing students with more frequent contact with faculty;
• Enhanced the legal writing and research program by requiring every student in their final year of law school to enroll in Legal Drafting; and
• Enhanced the Academic Success Program by retaining a full-time professor of Academic Success, J. Joseph Bodine Jr., L’89.

“While increasing our emphasis on preparing all of our students to be successful on the bar exam, we have not lost sight of the fact that we are preparing our students to enter the practice of law, which is far more rigorous and complex than the bar exam,” Guttenberg said.