ABA Standard 301-6: Schools that Face the Stress Test: LaVerne School of Law

According to some, there are about 25 law schools that will have trouble keeping in compliance with the ABA Standard 301-6. Just to see how the standard will work, I picked 3 schools from 3 different jurisdictions to determine whether those law schools comply with ABA 301-6. Although 5 years of statistics are usually used, I will use 2007 and 2008 with February 2009 thrown in.

Today, let’s see how LaVerne does:

University of LaVerne School of Law
State: California
Status: Provisionally Accredited

February 2007 Overall Pass Rate: 29.2% (48 takers and 14 passers)

1st time pass rate: 45%; state average first time pass rate-CA ABA schools: 61%

16% below state average

July 2007 Overall Pass Rate: 46% (76 takers and 35 passers)

1st time pass rate: 57%; state average first time pass rate – CA ABA schools: 76%

19% below state average

Total 2007 Overall Pass Rate: 39.5% (124 takers and 49 passers)

35.5% below the 75% standard



February 2008 Overall Pass Rate: 36.2% (47 takers and 17 passers)

1st time pass rate: 50%; state average first time pass rate – CA ABA schools: 62%

12% below state average

July 2008 Overall Pass Rate: 50% (84 takers and 42 passers)

1st time pass rate: 61%; state average first time pass rate – CA ABA schools : 83%

22% below state average

Total 2008 Overall Pass Rate: 45% (131 takers and 59 passers)

30% below the 75% average



February 2009 will be out on May 15th.

As we can see, LaVerne has a tough climb upward if it hopes to turn its provisionally accredited status to full accreditation status. Only in February 2008 did the school come into compliance by being 15% or under (in this case, 12%) the state average.

The yearly totals for 2008 and 2007 are abysmal, with numbers not even in the ballpark to 75%. Unless LaVerne makes some drastic changes in its bar preparation or hires a dynamo to completely revitalize its efforts, the ABA cannot possibly give LaVerne full accreditation, in my opinion.

For once there is a clear objective standard to judge law schools and, from the numbers of its two latest years, LaVerne may be years away from earning its accreditation.