A year after Rhode Island lowered its passing score for the bar examination, the effect on pass rates remains murky.
In March 2021, the R.I. Supreme Court voted 4-1 to lower the state bar exam passing score from 276 to 270, which retroactively applied to exams taken in February of that year. With the change, Rhode Island stepped into line with the rest of New England, as well as most of the U.S., according to leaders at local law schools.
The state’s standards are now “on par with its peers,” said Brittany Raposa, a professor and associate director of the bar exam program at the Roger Williams University School of Law, “and I think it maximized a student’s ability to practice in Rhode Island.”
When the passing score was set at 276, Rhode Island had one of the highest passing standards in the U.S. Today, only two states – Colorado and Alaska – require a score of 276 or higher to pass the exam.
Rhode Island now has the fifth-highest passing standard in the country, matching 15 other states.
The six-point drop in the pass-fail line may seem small, Raposa said, “but it matters since many people do score between a 270 and a 275.”
The exam scoring varies based on a national scaling model, but it’s possible that six points could be the difference of getting a few of the exam’s 200 multiple choice questions wrong, or a couple points off on a written question, Raposa says.
These relatively small mistakes can add up to a big financial loss for those who will have to retake the test. Sitting for the bar exam costs $975 in Rhode Island, and test preparation can range from $2,000 to $3,600, Raposa says.
In its ruling, the state Supreme Court offered few details on the reasoning behind lowering the passing grade, but it said that the change followed recommendations from the state Board of Bar Examiners.
The court implemented the change at a time when “there was a movement across the country to make the testing and scoring more uniform,” said Craig N. Berke, director of communications for the R.I. Judiciary.
Shortly before Rhode Island lowered its score, California took a similar step.
In 2018, Rhode Island joined the Uniform Bar Examination, a system allowing candidates to transfer their bar exam score from one state to another if they wish to practice law elsewhere. Forty-one states now follow this system.
Lowering the passing score on the bar exam, Berke says, continues Rhode Island’s alignment with other states.
Observers say that lowering the passing score also helps to ease equity issues around the bar exam, which disproportionately impact low-income students and students of color.
“We know that fewer people of color pass the bar exam due to differences in resources that are required to study for the bar exam,” said Eric J. Mitnick, dean of the University of Massachusetts School of Law, “and that difference in cut scores makes a big difference.”
Even a small change is significant because “bar-takers end up clustered right around the cut score,” Mitnick said.
So far, there have been mixed results for Rhode Island test-takers. Sixty-four percent passed the bar exam in February 2021 – the first group affected by the new passing score, then 77% passed in July that year. But in February 2022, the pass rate sank to 40%, the lowest percentage in five years.
Some in the profession want to see a more dramatic change to the bar exam. Detractors say the exam does not accurately reflect a practicing lawyer’s abilities.
“A lot of us push for an exam that’s more geared towards what a student would experience in practice,” which doesn’t necessarily involve memorizing large volumes of law, Raposa said.
A more accurate measure of a would-be attorney’s abilities could be demonstrated through legal writing, Raposa says. Some advocate for an oral component of the exam.
Still, others say the bar exam remains an important aspect of a lawyer’s preparation. In his dissenting opinion of lowering the passing score, R.I. Supreme Court Justice William P. Robinson said that passing the exam is “an important prerequisite to admission to the bar.”
“In view of the fact that the professional services of lawyers are very often sought by members of the public, who come from a wide diversity of backgrounds, I believe that society is better served by the maintaining of demanding (but nonetheless reasonable) standards for entry into the legal profession,” Robinson wrote.
Conversations on bar exam reform are also taking place on a wider level: the National Conference of Bar Examiners is developing a “Next Gen Bar Exam,” a test intended to better emphasize day-to-day skills used by attorneys, rather than memorization. The reformed test is planned to roll out in 2026.
To Mitnick, this change couldn’t come soon enough.
“The test itself is problematic,” Mitnick said. “It’s a grueling regimen. You have to memorize hundreds of pages of legal doctrines – probably in many areas that you’ll never practice law – and you don’t have to memorize that material when you’re working on a case.”
As a practicing lawyer, not looking up a case could even amount to malpractice, he says.
But until a larger change to the bar exam, “270 is sort of the consensus score among states,” Mitnick said.
Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Voghel@PBN.com.
