ABA Proposes Change to Accreditation Rules

From Inside Higher Ed (June 20, 2007):

"The American Bar Association on Tuesday proposed a
shift in the way accredited law schools demonstrate that a
sufficient portion of their graduates pass state bar exams.
Under one option, a law school would have to show that in at
least three of the most recent five years, in the jurisdiction
in which the largest proportion of the school’s graduates take
the bar exam for the first time, they pass the exam above, at
or no more than 10 points below the first-time bar passage
rates for graduates of ABA-approved law schools taking the
bar examination in that jurisdiction. For schools from which
more than 20 percent of graduates take their first bar
examination in a jurisdiction other than the primary one,
the schools also would be required to demonstrate that at
least 70 percent of those students passed their bar examination
over the two most recent bar exams. Law schools unable to
satisfy the first alternative still could comply by demonstrating
that 80 percent of all their graduates who take a bar
examination anywhere in the country pass a bar examination
within three sittings of the exam within three years of graduation."

The proposed rules are subject to a comment period before
ratification.

The text of the ABA Memorandum of June 18, 2007,
may be found in PDF here.