July bar exam passage rate just under 75%

Just under three-quarters of candidates who sat for the Virginia Bar Exam in July passed the test, according to data from the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners.

Of the 582 persons who sat for the July exam, 391 passed and have completed all other admission requirements and are licensed to practice law by the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners as of Oct. 12. Another 45 persons passed the exam but were placed on the “blue list” due to outstanding requirements for admission to the bar.

This year’s overall pass rate was 74.91%, down slightly from the 75.48% rate last July but generally flat based on data from recent years. With the exception of the July 2020 exam, which had the highest pass rate in 22 years, July bar exams since 2015 have seen overall pass rates between 71% and 75%, according to data available on the VBBE website.

Of first-time test takers, 77.24% passed the exam, down roughly two-and-a-half percentage points from July 2022.

Among Virginia’s law schools, the University of Virginia led the way with a perfect overall pass rate for the second year in a row. The data from the VBBE did not list how many UVa. graduates sat for the exam. The College of William and Mary, George Mason University and Liberty University joined UVa. with pass rates of 90% or higher.

The bar exam results for Virginia law schools are below.

The admission ceremony for the newly licensed attorneys will be held on Dec. 6 and will be conducted by the Supreme Court of Virginia. The ceremony will be co-hosted by the Virginia State Bar Young Lawyers Conference at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.

The February 2024 bar exam will be held on Feb. 27 and 28, 2024 at the Fredericksburg Expo & Conference Center in Fredericksburg. The filing deadline for the exam is Dec. 15.

The February 2023 exam had an overall pass rate of 63.27%, down over two percentage points from February 2022 but higher than the pass rates of every other February exam dating back to 1999.