Bar exams low rate not helping law school

When visiting the University of South Dakota, prospective students expect to see their futures become a bit more clear. The campus celebrates graduate programs, advantages for internships and the state’s only law and medical schools.

Students want to know what they are getting from a USD education as soon as they start asking questions.

However, it is alarming when the lenses to the future are blurred by statistics showing the education received in Vermillion may not be up to par with nationwide standards.

The South Dakota School of Law is a celebrated feature on campus. Some of South Dakota’s most prominent political figures are alumni of the school; student ambassadors praise the law school in campus tours; our university president grabbed a juris doctor degree from USD’s law school.

But whether the education received at the School of Law is as valuable as law schools elsewhere is a tough question to answer after hearing the state’s bar examination is the easiest to pass in the nation, according to the GoLocalPDX survey from Oregon.

Although the bar examination is not created inside our school’s building, the students looking to pass out of the USD School of Law are more likely to take the state’s bar exam. And, apparently, much more likely to pass the exam than if they are in other areas of the country.

Our newspaper’s story featured two people — law school dean Thomas Geu and one graduate of USD law — who both provided counterarguments to the “easiest in the nation” grade the South Dakota exam received.

Geu attributed the ratings to GoLocalPDX relying on pass rate of the exam over other factors of the law programs and state’s exam. Geu ignored the surveys findings because they did not account for USD’s smaller classes, which help contribute to student success.

The student said he knows people who have failed South Dakota’s bar exam and passed California’s, which is known as the hardest bar exam because of low passing rates.

Still, the state’s bar exam is being revamped, whether to improve its standing nationally is unclear. But clearly the passing rate of 90 percent nine of the last 16 years in South Dakota makes the state’s exam look easier.

Students, especially prospective law students, should understand what they are getting from the state’s only School of Law. Whether the state’s bar exam is a joke nationally or falsified numbers degrading the program, the school must make the grade nationally, not just in South Dakota.

(Photo: University of South Dakota students attend a law lecture in the USD School of Law. According to the GoLocalPDX survey from Oregon, the law school’s bar exam is one of the easiest to pass in the nation. File photo / The Volante)