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Why are graduates of the Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School more often failing the bar examination than students at any other Michigan law school?
That's a question Cooley officials are trying to figure out.
Like most law schools statewide, Cooley saw a major performance downturn in July 2012 when the state started giving greater weight to the essay portion of the exam. Previously, a good score on the multiple-choice portion could help offset poorer results in the essay part. The weighting was changed again for the July 2014 test.
But while most other schools appear to be recovering from the change, Cooley hasn't made the same progress.
In July, only 55 percent of the 199 Cooley grads taking the bar exam for the first time passed. When graduates taking the exam for the second, third or subsequent time are included, that percentage drops to 44 percent -- the third summer in a row that's happened -- while other schools have seen 8 to 15 percentage-point gains, according to data from the state Board of Law Examiners. The improvement at other schools could be significant for Cooley because one of the accreditation criteria of the American Bar Association calls for the school to keep its bar passage rate within 15 percentage points of exam-takers as a whole for the states where most of its graduates apply.
Specifically, the ABA requires that either the first-time taker pass rate stay within the 15 percent margin for three...