AccessLex | LSSSE Bar Exam Success Initiative

Explore the connections between student engagement and academic and bar performance.

The AccessLex | LSSSE Bar Exam Success Initiative will begin accepting new participating schools in Fall 2024.

This collaborative initiative between AccessLex Institute^® and LSSSE was created with the fundamental goal of providing tangible information that law schools can use to help increase bar passage. What works for your students? What doesn’t? Where can resources and efforts be best invested? These are some of the questions we’re seeking to answer.

LSSSE provides schools with empirical insights about the extent to which students are engrossed – or engaged – in the law school experience. Student engagement is a holistic concept, capturing the intricate web of individual and institutional processes and actions that contribute to desired student outcomes. There is much potential for using student engagement theory to understand the processes and actions that contribute to bar exam performance.

This initiative will apply a longitudinal approach to analyzing the influence of student engagement on academic and bar success, following the Fall 2023 cohort throughout their law school years. To ensure an adequate sample size, schools must have a Fall 2023 full-time entering class size of 180 students or more to participate in the study. The partnership will span the 2024, 2025, and 2026 administrations of the LSSSE Survey. If your institution cannot meet these requirements, we have another analytical opportunity for you!

AccessLex will provide a 100% LSSSE Survey registration fee subsidy to law schools that yielded first-time bar passage rates below 75% in calendar years 2020, 2021 or 2022. In order to qualify for the subsidy, law schools must commit to the following:

• Administering LSSSE in three consecutive years:2024 through 2026;
• Ensuring a minimum of 125 LSSSE Survey responses or a 55 percent response rate from the Fall 2023 cohort each year (whichever yields the highest number of respondents);
• Sharing demographic and academic background information for the Fall 2023 cohort in the three LSSSE administration years with LSSSE and AccessLex researchers; and,
• Allowing aggregate and anonymized school-level data to be used in the building of a clearinghouse of relevant information as well as in reports, presentations, etc.

Once a school qualifies for the subsidy, it will receive it for the three consecutive years it administers the LSSSE Survey. The subsidy will be paid directly to law schools in the form of a restricted grant. Schools must provide a W-9 and documentation of LSSSE registration fee payment to AccessLex in order to receive reimbursement.

The primary deliverables will be three individualized reports to each law school being studied – intermediate reports after their first and second LSSSE administration and final reports after their third. These reports will employ applied research principles and methods to provide participating schools tangible, actionable information, including explanation and illustration of significant, useful findings from the project, and as may be appropriate, recommendations. View a sample final report from the previous AccessLex/LSSSE initiative.

Participation Incentives

1. LSSSE fees reimbursement, annually, for law schools with below 75% bar pass rate in 2020, 2021 or 2022
2. $25 gift card for Fall 2023 cohort survey respondents, annually
3. $1,000 AccessLex Academic Achievement Award for most improved student, awarded in the third year only
4. Robust, empirical analysis to assist your ongoing work of empowering the next generation of lawyers

To learn more about the initiative, download the presentation slides from our webinar about the project and review our comprehensive overview of the study.

About LSSSE

As part of the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research, LSSSE has been a provider of research products and services centered on the study of the law student experience since 2004. Through consulting services, LSSSE helps law schools maximize the usefulness of their survey data and their assessment activities. Through research functions, LSSSE is a source of macro-level, empirical information about the law student experience.

Since 2004, 203 law schools in the U.S. (184), Canada (17), and Australia (2) have administered the LSSSE Survey, eliciting over 380,000 student responses—the largest such dataset in existence.

LSSSE adheres to the following core values:

•         Rigor in research practices
•         Responsiveness in meeting the needs of law schools and clients
•         Diligence in voicing the student perspective
•         Vigilance in remaining abreast of salient trends in legal education
•         Openness in fostering strategic partnerships
•         Dedication in working for the betterment of legal education

The AccessLex Academic Achievement Award promotes the importance of academic growth over the course of law students’ studies. Award recipients were selected from one of the AccessLex | LSSSE Bar Exam Success Initiative participating schools and each demonstrated the greatest academic growth among their graduating cohort at their institution. These award winners embody the importance of engagement with their studies and the law school environment, as well as the determination to improve and succeed.