–By Greg Miller for FIU News

FIU Law graduates earned a 95.7 percent first-time bar passage rate on the July 2019 Florida Bar Exam, the highest of any of Florida’s 11 law schools, and 21.8 percentage points higher than the state average.

Since 2009 – the earliest year for which the Florida Supreme Court maintains online results records – no law school had achieved a passage rate above 92 percent on a July examination.

“Our students come to law school ready to develop their already impressive talents and our faculty do an admirable job assisting them,” said FIU Law Dean Antony Page. “From our doctrinal, legal skills, and experiential learning offerings, to our Academic Excellence Program led by Raul Ruiz and Louis Schulze, the wealth of educational resources available to our students help them become great learners, and ultimately, great lawyers.”

Although the Florida Board of Bar Examiners administers the bar exam twice a year, the vast majority of graduates choose to take the exam in July, two months after most law schools host their graduation ceremonies. In 2019, 2,066 first-time takers sat for the July administration compared to just 599 in February.

FIU Law has now finished first among Florida law schools on five consecutive July bar exams, and on seven of the 10 bar exams administered since 2015. FIU Law’s “ultimate” bar pass rate – which measures the percentage of graduates who pass the bar exam within two years of graduation – ranks among the top 15 law schools in the nation.

The latest bar exam results are the most recent in a series of 2019 accolades for the College of Law. In March, the College was ranked among the nation’s top 50 public law schools by U.S. News & World Report; in May, it accepted the Law School Admissions Council’s Diversity Matters Award for its efforts in advancing programs that promote access to justice; and in August, the National Jurist featured the College as one of the nation’s best law schools for small firm employment.