ASU Law graduates outpace the nation and lead the state in bar exam results

Graduates of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University once again surpassed the national average and maintained top spots in the state for bar passage results.

The passage rate on the February bar exam for first-time ASU Law test takers was 81.6 percent. The national average was 61.2 percent among first-time test takers from all American Bar Association-accredited law schools and 48.8 percent among ABA-accredited schools in Arizona.

ASU Law’s bar passage rate is one of the many successful outcomes of the school’s comprehensive and personalized legal education that offers a variety of graduate degrees and more than 250 unique courses to choose from.

“ASU Law prepared me immensely for the bar exam, both in knowledge of the law and in how to approach questions about the law,” said Jeff Garrett (JD/MBA ’15), who works for the Raytheon Company as an international subcontract manager. “When it came time to get down to the black letter law for the bar exam, I had plenty of information to build upon. I also had plenty of experience on how to pick out key details in fact patterns and how to craft a persuasive argument. In the end, even though I took one of the expensive bar prep courses, I felt that my time at ASU Law was the biggest contributor to successfully passing the bar exam.”

Ranked No. 25 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, ASU Law also ranks in the top 20 among all law school in placing graduates in real lawyer jobs. Within 10 months of graduation, 85 percent of ASU Law's Class of 2015 graduates found employment in long-term, full-time positions where bar passage is required or a juris doctor (JD) is preferred. The national employment average is 70 percent, according to data collected by the ABA on the nation’s ABA-accredited law schools.

Ever mindful of easing student debt, ASU Law has kept its tuition rates low and offers numerous scholarships and financial-aid options. National Jurist magazine ranks ASU Law No. 16 for best value and GraduatePrograms.com ranks the school No. 14 for financial aid.

“Going into law school, cost was one of the biggest factors I had in mind. By the time it came to making a decision on where to attend, I had received scholarship offers from several different schools,” Garrett said. “At this point, it became a balanced consideration of cost to attend and overall quality of the program. The scholarships from ASU Law pushed the school to the top of the calculus and drew me to attend the school.”

In fall 2016, ASU Law will move to its new home in downtown Phoenix, the Arizona Center for Law and Society. The new state-of-the-art facility is steps away from the legal, political and economic heart of Arizona, in the nation’s sixth-largest city.