Curriculum Design and Bar Passage: The Impact of Sequencing Doctrinal Courses

It was once commonplace for law schools to teach certain rule-based, bar-tested subjects, such as Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law, as a sequence of two, three-credit courses. More recently, however, some law schools have transitioned to teaching a single, typically four-credit course to cover this material. Despite this trend, there appears to be a dearth of research examining how the migration from a sequential offering to a single course for these subjects impacts a law school’s first-time bar passage rate. It seems reasonable to theorize that lengthening exposure to these bar-tested topics via the two-course sequence would yield deeper learning and greater mastery of the subject matter, which would yield higher pass rates. Based on that premise, this research brief tests the hypothesis that, all else being equal, schools that sequence learning in these foundational courses will have higher first-time bar passage rates than schools that do not. Specifically, we researched:

1. How curricular decisions regarding the sequencing of Civil Procedure, Contracts, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Real Property, and Torts vary over time and by jurisdiction (UBE or non-UBE).
2. Whether sequencing these courses correlates with first-time bar passage outcomes when controlling for school selectivity, year, and UBE requirement.