Fordham Law graduates pass the bar on the first attempt at a rate of about 84%, against a national first-time average of roughly 75 to 80%. That is a genuinely good number, but a bar passage rate is only as meaningful as the questions you ask of it: which state’s exam, measured over whom, and produced by what. This page is how to read the number like a buyer instead of an applicant.

The Fordham Law Bar Numbers

MetricFigureContextFirst-time bar passage84%vs. ~77.5% national midpointNational first-time average~75 to 80%Annual benchmarkPrimary jurisdictionNew YorkVerify in the ABA 509U.S. News rank#30Peer-tier context

Is Fordham Law’s Bar Passage Rate Good?

Yes, 84% first-time passage sits clearly above the national average and signals a school whose academic program and incoming class are both doing their jobs. The honest qualifier: state mix matters, so verify the jurisdiction before comparing across schools.

For calibration: 84% is 6 points above the national midpoint, margin that survives jurisdiction adjustments in most states.

What a Bar Passage Rate Actually Measures

A bar passage rate is manufactured from three components. The raw material is the entering class, medians in, results out, more correlated than anyone’s marketing admits. The process is the curriculum: curves, writing volume, doctrinal coverage. And the quiet third factor is who gets counted: schools with aggressive academic attrition graduate a pre-filtered cohort, which flatters the rate without improving the teaching. Read all three before crediting any one.

Withheld Tip: trend beats snapshot. Pull three consecutive years of the school’s 509 bar data before believing any single figure, one strong year is a cohort, three is a program. Rates that swing widely year to year are telling you about the denominator, not the teaching.

Bar Prep, and the Exam That’s Changing

Fordham Law’s bar prep apparatus will resemble the industry standard, commercial course partnerships, a readiness program, advising, and the differences that matter live in the details: what is subsidized, what is required, and when it begins. Make admissions name all three.

Keep one eye forward: the licensing exam itself is in transition, with states adopting the NextGen bar exam on a rolling basis through 2028. The emphasis shifts toward applied lawyering skills, which rewards exactly the habit the LSAT should have taught you: training the underlying skill under feedback rather than memorizing around it. Ask any school how its bar curriculum is adapting; the question itself signals you understand what you are buying.

One non-negotiable for evaluating any school: never accept a bar passage rate without its jurisdiction. A naked percentage is a marketing number; a percentage with a state attached is data.

If You Only Do 3 Things

1. Download the school’s current ABA 509 disclosure and read the bar passage breakdown by jurisdiction yourself.
2. Confirm the measured state matches where you intend to practice, and if it doesn’t, find your state’s line before this number influences anything.
3. Ask admissions precisely what bar prep support consists of: which courses are subsidized, what the readiness program requires, and when it starts.

Fordham Law Bar Passage: Quick Answers

What is Fordham Law’s bar passage rate?

About 84% first-time, above the national first-time average of roughly 75 to 80%, a figure that means the most once you know which state’s exam it describes and how that state’s baseline runs. The 509 disclosure carries both.

Why do bar passage rates differ so much between schools?

Because they compress three things into one number: the credentials of admitted students, the rigor of the program, and which state bars graduates sit for. Comparing rates without comparing states and inputs is comparing headlines, not outcomes.

Does a high bar passage rate mean better teaching?

It means inputs, instruction, and attrition jointly produced a number. Untangle them, median in, dismissal rate, jurisdiction, before crediting the classroom. When all three check out, so does the rate.

Related Playbooks

• The Law School Admissions Timeline

Lovare’s Take

The bar exam is the final feedback loop of a process that started with your diagnostic LSAT. Schools with honest numbers survive the questions on this page; schools with marketing numbers don’t. Reading outcomes data skeptically isn’t cynicism, it’s the first legal skill.