Ivy Schools May Examine Bar Failures

The deans of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia Law Schools may soon appoint a committee to investigate the increasing number of failures among Ivy League law graduates taking the New York Bar examination.

Of those who took the exam last year, 73 per cent of Harvard Law School graduates passed, a decline of several per cent from previous years. Percentages from Yale and Columbia were slightly lower, but similar. However, 79 per cent of New York University graduates passed, reflecting a trend toward better performance on the exam by lawyers trained in local New York schools.

The difference in the percentages of those passing is due to the fact that N.Y.U. and many other New York schools have courses designed as preparation for the state bar exam, while the Ivy League schools give broader, more theoretical law courses.

Remedy Sought

Local New York schools usually offer courses in New York domestic law, but the Ivy League curriculum has nothing in this field. If the committee is formed, it will attempt to find a remedy for the increasing failures without instituting courses aimed at specific bar exams.

Two Yale professors have solved the problem by giving a "cram course" in Connecticut law to graduates of the Yale Law School. Virtually one hundred per cent of the graduates who take the course pass the state bar exam on the first attempt. A similar course in New York domestic law is available to Columbia graduates.

Cramming Unsatisfactory

The Ivy League deans feel that such "cram courses" are not a satisfactory solution to the problem, however, since these courses conflict with the analytical approach which they favor.

The committee may decide to support a movement within the American Bar Association to create a national bar exam as the best solution to the problem. A national test would eliminate the state bar exams with their wide regional variations, and encourage law schools to drop highly specific courses in favor of more general ones.

Harvard feels that 90 per cent of its law graduates should be able to pass any bar exam on the first try.