King Hall Class of 2014 Bar Passage Rate Tops 86 Percent, Ranks Among Best in State
Members of the UC Davis School of Law J.D. Class of 2014 achieved an outstanding 86 percent pass rate on the California Bar Exam and were also completely successful on the exams taken in other states, according to statistics from the State Bar of California and other state bars.
Of the 146 UC Davis School of Law 2014 graduates who took the California exam, 125 passed. The California passage rate of 85.62 percent reflects an increase of about one percent from the Class of 2013 and is particularly impressive given that the average pass rate of all first-time test takers who graduated from American Bar Association (ABA)-approved law schools throughout California dropped about 7 percent from the previous year to 69 percent – the lowest rate in several years. King Hall’s California performance this year thus places it almost 17 percent higher than the average pass rate of California’s ABA-approved schools. All eight members of the 2014 class who took bar exams in states other than California also passed, resulting in an overall passage rate of 86.36 percent for the Class as a whole.
Pass rates of ABA-approved law schools on the July 2014 California bar exam [Data provided by State Bar on 12/29/2014]:
- UC Berkeley (88.3%)
- Stanford (87.6%)
- USC (86.6%)
- UC Davis (85.6%)
- UCLA (81.7%)
- Loyola L.A. (79.9%)
- Pepperdine (77.7%)
- UC Irvine (77.1%)
- Chapman (74.8%)
- University of San Diego (72.7%)
- California Western (71.3%)
- UC-Hastings (68.3%)
- La Verne (65.5%)
- University of San Francisco (61.4%)
- McGeorge (60.5%)
- Santa Clara (60.4%)
- Western State (58.8%)
- Southwestern (54.4%)
- Thomas Jefferson (44.7%)
- Golden Gate (43.8%)
- Whittier (42.7%)
Recent graduates who passed the California bar exam returned to King Hall for a Swearing-In Ceremony in the Kalmanovitz Appellate Courtroom on December 5.
Photo Gallery: Swearing-In Ceremony
“Congratulations to our Class of 2014 for an excellent performance on this year’s California Bar Exam and other state examinations,” said Dean Kevin R. Johnson. “With the support of our outstanding faculty and staff, your hard work, talents, and determination resulted in a truly first-rate bar passage rate that continues the King Hall tradition of exceptional bar exam success, a tradition that is especially important in these times when bar passage is so often linked to employment prospects.”
Other factors contributing to the high bar passage rate include the Law School's Academic Success Program and extensive bar preparation resources, Dean Johnson added. King Hall's comprehensive bar preparation program includes innovative bar skills courses, workshops, writing programs for students and new graduates, and opportunities for tutoring, as well as presentations by faculty, State Bar representatives, instructors from leading bar review programs, and King Hall graduates who have advice for tackling the exam.