Bar Preparation
All law students are encouraged to contact the Director of Bar Services and to participate in the bar preparation activities as they are announced. Please feel free to stop by his office so that you can meet in person. If you prefer, please feel free to call or email Richard Gaffney.
Background
In September 2006, the Law School created a new Director of Bar Services position to help students prepare for and pass the Bar Exam. The position is the result of a study commissioned and conducted by faculty members as part of their ongoing commitment to excellence in legal education.
The services provided by the Director of Bar Services are intended to be an addition to and not a replacement for the other bar preparation course and resources, such as Professor Astorino's year-round review classes and the commercial programs. The Director will administer the bar preparation program, encourage student participation and work with students individually and in small study groups.
Duquesne’s Bar Pass Results Remain Strong
The faculty, administration, and staff of the Duquesne University School of Law congratulate the Class of 2011 for its performance on the July 2011 Pennsylvania Bar Examination. Fully 90.1% of our graduating class sat for the exam, with other graduates sitting for bar examinations in other or multiple jurisdictions. In addition to this year's graduates that have already passed bar examinations in six other states (whose results were previously released in Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Maine, Connecticut and Nevada), one hundred fifty-seven (157) graduates passed the Pennsylvania Bar Examination on their first attempt in July. The pass rate was, for our day division students, 84.6% (104 of 123 passed), for our part-time day division students, 100% (3 of 3 passed), for our evening division students, 76.9% (50 of 65 passed), and overall 82.2% (157 of 191 passed). Fully 32.5% of the Class of 2011 graduated from our evening division and 94.2% of these graduates sat for the July exam (compared with 88.5% of the day division class). This solid performance places Duquesne within a tight cluster of law schools whose pass rates were in the 80% - 87% range, including Drexel, Widener - Delaware, Rutgers - Camden and the University of Pittsburgh, whose results edged Duquesne by just 1.78%. The results came in as anticipated, as they are directly in line with last year's results and are higher than Duquesne's fifteen-year rolling average first time pass rate (80.0%).
The pass rate for Duquesne graduates was the product of diligent preparation and hard work. As a part of their preparation, many of Duquesne's 2011 graduates took advantage of the law school's comprehensive Bar Examination Preparation program, which was instituted by the faculty in 2006 to improve results on the Bar Exam.Recognizing that more than passive participation in a commercial bar preparation course is often needed to pass the Bar, Duquesne Law School provides substantial resources to help students and recent graduates maximize their scores, including a year-long course that focuses the multiple-choice questions found on prior bar exams. This course is available to all 3rd and 4th year students on Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. In addition, Duquesne offers a spring semester course that incorporates lectures on substantive law and essay questions from past Pennsylvania bar exams. This course is offered on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.
We congratulate these recent graduates on this significant accomplishment and look forward not only to seeing them at alumni events, but to the many accomplishment that they will undoubtedly make to the legal community throughout their professional careers.
