Methodology
The report is based on a comprehensive analysis of the three types of law schools in California: those approved by the American Bar Association (ABA-approved), those accredited by the State Bar of California’s Committee of Bar Examiners (CALS), and unaccredited law schools that are registered and monitored by the Committee of Bar Examiners (unaccredited). For further insights into the characteristics and distinctions among these institutions, refer to the section titled “California Law Schools: An Overview.”
DATA SOURCES
This report utilizes several sources of data, as discussed below.
CALS and Unaccredited Annual Compliance Reports
The data presented in this report describe enrollment, attrition, Juris Doctor (JD) degrees awarded, and costs of attendance for CALS and unaccredited law schools. Data was drawn from these schools’ Annual Compliance Reports (annual compliance report).[1] The annual compliance report collects administrative and programmatic information and data following rules adopted by the State Bar’s Board of Trustees for CALS and unaccredited law schools. Submission of the report is mandatory. Another data source was information that all CALS and unaccredited schools must provide to the State Bar as required by California Business and Professions Code section 6061.7(a). Examples of such information include law school tuition and fees.
In 2020, the State Bar modified the demographic reporting requirements for CALS and unaccredited law schools to acquire more insightful information regarding enrollment, attrition rates, and the conferral of JD degrees among students from diverse demographic backgrounds. The revised reporting requirements sought a deeper understanding of students’ educational experiences and outcomes across various demographic groups. Racial/ethnic categories were modified to align more closely with those collected by the ABA. New demographic characteristics were also added to align with the demographic information the State Bar collects and reports about attorneys in California, including sexual orientation, disability status, and veteran status.
Analyses in this report reflect 18 CALS and 12 unaccredited law schools operating in fall 2022.[2]
State Bar Reports on Exam Performance
Data on California Bar Exam passage rates were drawn from reports made available to the public on the State Bar’s website. Data on First-Year Law Students’ Exam (FYLSX) passage rates were drawn from a 2022 report produced by Roger Bolus for the State Bar titled Profiling the Immediate and Longer-Term Outcomes of the California First-Year Law Student Examination. For more information about these exams, see definitions below.
American Bar Association
The data presented in this report that describe enrollment, attrition, JD degrees awarded, and cost of attendance for ABA-approved California law schools was drawn from these schools’ annual Standard 509 reports. These reports contain enrollment information that law schools submit annually to help the ABA determine whether schools comply with other ABA Standards, such as Standard 206, which states that schools should have diverse student bodies, faculty, and staff to maintain accreditation. ABA-approved law schools submit an annual questionnaire to the ABA. The ABA compiles a subset of information from the annual Standard 509 Reports into a single report for each law school for the public. The ABA also compiles data on enrollment and attrition into downloadable data files and makes them available online.
This report’s analyses reflect 18 California ABA-approved schools operating in fall 2022.
California Law School Survey and Focus Groups
In fall 2020, the State Bar invited all law schools in California to participate in a survey regarding institutional recruitment and retention practices focusing on student recruitment efforts; academic and nonacademic support programs; career development opportunities; financial support; and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. The survey was administered to 53 law schools operating in California, as compared against the 48 analyzed in this report.[3] Overall, 87 percent of law schools participated in the survey, with slight variation by type of law school (see table below).[4] See appendix A for a summary of the survey results.
2020 California Law School Survey Response Rates
From December 2021 through February 2022, the State Bar conducted four focus groups with California law school administrators. The focus groups were intended to inform the State Bar’s analysis of the 2020 survey results. Law school administrators were encouraged to share insights learned during the pandemic. Over half (27) of all law schools that participated in the survey participated in at least one focus group. Insights from the focus groups are highlighted throughout the report and Appendix A.
DEFINITIONS
This report analyzes several topics related to the law school experience. The section below provides definitions for each and notes how the ABA-approved law schools and the CALS and unaccredited law schools report data on each.
✔ JD Enrollment
“JD enrollment” refers to the number of students enrolled in a JD granting program. Although other law degrees exist, a JD degree is the most common degree required to practice law in the United States and earning it, for most applicants, is a critical step toward licensure to practice law.
CALS and Unaccredited Law Schools
The 2022 annual compliance report required CALS and unaccredited schools to report enrollment data for law school students enrolled in a JD degree program during the 52 weeks between September 16, 2021, and September 15, 2022. A JD degree program is a program of instruction designed to satisfy the legal education requirement for eligibility to sit for the California bar exam, earning a first degree in law. It does not include Master of Laws (LLM) programs, Executive JD Programs, or other non-JD degrees. Unlike the ABA, which requires ABA-approved law schools to report the number of students enrolled on a specific date, the State Bar instructs the CALS and the unaccredited law schools to report unduplicated enrollment across 52 weeks in recognition of the varying academic schedules these schools have. For example, some schools start one class cohort per year, while others start multiple cohorts on various dates.
ABA-approved Law Schools
Law schools approved by the ABA are required to submit their 509 reports by mid-October of each year after their current incoming class is solidified. Schools reported JD enrollment as the number of students who matriculated to the school in the fall, including full-time, part-time, and other enrollees (e.g., prior year deferred admitted students, transfers with less than one year of law school credit, students previously withdrawn or suspended with less than one year of law school credit who resumed their studies). The 509 reports also require schools to report JD enrollment disaggregated by students enrolled in their first, second, and third years of law school.
✔ Attrition
Attrition analyses focus on first-year law students who discontinue their legal education before beginning their second year. Students who transferred, were studying at another school temporarily, or were on a leave of absence of one year or less were excluded from these analyses.
CALS and Unaccredited Law Schools
The 2022 annual compliance report required schools to report attrition for the 2021 cohort of first-year law students who began law school at any time between September 16, 2020, and September 15, 2021, by race/ethnicity and gender identity. Nontransfer attrition is defined as students who discontinued their enrollment before enrolling as second-year JD students for any reason other than graduation with a JD and who did not re-enroll as of September 15, 2022, without earning a JD for one of the following reasons:
- Academic Dismissal: Students who were dismissed for academic reasons;
- Voluntary Nonacademic Attrition: Students who left for reasons other than “Academic Dismissal,” excluding transfers.
Law schools were instructed to record students who discontinued enrollment for unknown reasons as “Voluntary Nonacademic Attrition.” Students on leave awaiting passage of the First-Year Law Students’ Examination were excluded from attrition counts. (For more information about this exam, see below.) Attrition rates analyzed in this report were calculated as follows:
ABA-approved Law Schools
The ABA identified two types of nontransfer attrition: academic and “other.” Academic attrition “refers to those students who discontinued their education at a time when they were not in good academic standing” and “it includes both students who have been dismissed because they did not satisfy the minimum standards of progress established by the Law School to continue their legal studies at that school and students who discontinued their enrollment at the school at a time when their GPA was below that required for good academic standing as of the end of the first year.” In contrast, “other attrition” refers to students who left a law school for reasons other than academic attrition, but does not include those who transferred, those who were studying at another school temporarily, or those who were on a leave of absence of one year or less. The analyses focused on JD students who were first-year law students on October 6, 2021, and who left school between October 6, 2021, and October 5, 2022, for academic or other reasons other than transfer.
✔ JDs Awarded
In general, JDs awarded describe the number of students who earned a JD.
CALS and Unaccredited Law Schools
The reported data reflects the JDs awarded from September 16, 2021, to September 15, 2022.
ABA-approved Law Schools
Each school reported the total number of individuals awarded a JD degree in the previous academic year. The data in this report reflect JDs that were awarded during the 2021-2022 academic year.
✔ California Bar Exam Data
The California Bar Exam is the exam required for admission to practice law in California. See section “California Bar Exam Passage Rates” for more information about this exam. Drawing from the State Bar’s General Statistics Reports on bar exam results, July general bar exam statistics for first-time takers are reported for each school type by race/ethnicity and gender identity from 2012 to 2022. Where fewer than 11 applicants are in any category, the data has been suppressed to protect applicant privacy. Exam statistics are also provided for each school. Results for Monterey College of Law’s four campuses are reported separately. Trend data aggregated by type reflect the school’s category during that year. Results presented by race/ethnicity use the labels from the original report. These labels are typically abbreviated versions of race/ethnicity options provided to bar exam test takers when asked to indicate their race/ethnicity.
✔ First-Year Law Students’ Examination (FYLSX)
The FYLSX is a mandatory exam required of students enrolled in unaccredited law schools, some students who attend CALS and ABA-approved schools, and all participants in the Law Office Study (LOS) Program, an alternative to law school that requires study under the supervision of an attorney or judge for four years. See section “Law School Attrition” for more information about the FYLSX. The report analyzes October 2022 data drawn from publicly available reports on the State Bar’s website. Exam statistics are made available to the public only for categories with 11 or more applicants, to protect applicant privacy. Trend data aggregated by law school type reflect the school’s teaching modality during that given year. Results presented by race/ethnicity use the labels from the original report. These labels are typically abbreviated versions of race/ethnicity options provided to bar exam test takers when asked to indicate their race/ethnicity.
✔ Costs to Complete JD
CALS and Unaccredited Law Schools
CALS and unaccredited law schools reported estimated total tuition and fees required to complete a JD degree as of September 15, 2022. The total cost to complete a JD degree analyzed in this report includes tuition and fees. The total cost to complete a JD is reported for each school, and the average is reported by school type.
ABA-approved Law Schools
ABA-approved law schools reported annual and per-credit tuition, fees, and the number of credits required to complete a JD for 2022–2023 in their Standard 509 reports. To derive the estimated total cost to complete a JD for each school, the annual tuition and fees were multiplied by three. Golden Gate University and Santa Clara University’s total costs to complete a JD were calculated by multiplying the per-credit tuition by the number of credits required to complete a JD because these schools did not report tuition and fees at the annual level.
✔ Student Demographic Characteristics
Race/Ethnicity
CALS and Unaccredited Law Schools
The 2022 annual compliance report instructed schools to report enrollment, attrition, and JDs awarded data disaggregated by race/ethnicity using the following categories:
- American Indian or Alaska Native
- Asian
- Black or African American
- Hispanic/Latino of any race
- Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
- Two or more races (non-Hispanic):
- White
- Decline to State/Unknown
The race/ethnicity and gender identity categories are similar to those the ABA requires, except for one key area. The ABA instructs law schools to exclude nonresident aliens from race/ethnicity counts and report them as a distinct category. In contrast, the State Bar instructs CALS and unaccredited laws schools to report the race/ethnicity of all students regardless of United States residency status.
Where necessary to have sufficient data to make meaningful comparisons with white law students, students who identified as Hispanic/Latino of any race, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, or multiracial were combined into a single “People of Color” category.
The State Bar will soon revise its directive to the CALS and unaccredited schools on its reporting of student race/ethnicity to the State Bar so that reporting is aligned with the how the State Bar collects and reports information on race/ethnicity among licensees. For example, the State Bar treats Hispanic/Latino as a race, not an ethnicity. The State Bar allows licensees to identify as Middle Eastern/North African.[5] For more information, see the State Bar’s most recent diversity report card on California’s attorney population.
ABA-approved Law Schools
The ABA directs law schools to report student race/ethnicity using the following categories:
- American Indian or Alaska Native
- Asian
- Black or African American
- Hispanic of any race
- Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
- Two or more races
- White
- Nonresident Alien
- Race and Ethnicity Unknown
The ABA data files also contain data fields that aggregate racial/ethnic categories into a single “People of color” category by combining students who identified as Hispanic of any race, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and Two or more races.
Reporting Categories. “Latino” will be used in lieu of “Hispanic/Latino of any race” and “Hispanic of any race” in graphics and the narrative. Similarly, “multiracial” will used in lieu of “Two or more races (non-Hispanic)” and “Two or more races.” “Unknown” will reflect both “declined to state” and “unknown race/ethnicity.”
The racial/ethnic reporting categories used in this report are:
- American Indian or Alaska Native
- Asian
- Black or African American
- Latino
- Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
- Multiracial
- White
- Nonresidents
- Unknown
Gender Identity
CALS and Unaccredited Law Schools
The 2022 annual compliance report instructed schools to report gender identity using the following four categories: Female, Male, Other, and Decline to State/Unknown. For this report, people reported by schools as identifying as “Other” are described as “nonbinary.”
ABA-approved Law Schools
The ABA directs law schools to report student gender identity using the following four categories: Men, Women, Alternate Gender Indicated, and Prefer Not to Respond. For this report, people reported as “Alternate Gender Indicated” are described as “nonbinary.” The State Bar acknowledges that people described as “nonbinary” in this report may not identify as nonbinary.
Reporting Categories. “Unknown” will reflect both “declined to state” and “unknown gender identity.” The gender identity categories used in this report are:
- Men
- Women
- Nonbinary
- Unknown
The Intersection of Race/Ethnicity and Gender Identity
Analyses that explore the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender identity are provided in this report wherever data was available. The six categories used are:
- White Men
- White Women
- White Nonbinary People
- Men of Color
- Women of Color
- Nonbinary People of Color
- Unknown
Note on Demographic Reporting
The analyses of law school enrollment, attrition, and JDs awarded in this report are limited to race/ethnicity and gender identity, and the intersection of both categories. The State Bar requires CALS and unaccredited law schools to report enrollment and JDs awarded data disaggregated by sexual orientation, disability, and veteran status, while the ABA does not require the same of ABA-approved schools. Law schools are required to report the number for which information was unavailable due to opting to decline to state or unknown for other reasons. Significant amounts of unavailable data for 2022 prevent reporting these student demographics in this report. The State Bar will work with CALS and unaccredited law schools to encourage the collection of more detailed student demographics.