72% first-time passage puts Lewis and Clark Law School squarely at the national average. Read that as a baseline, not a verdict: average rates at hard-bar states and easy-bar states mean very different things, and the ABA’s own disclosures let you tell which story this is.

The Lewis and Clark Law School Bar Numbers

MetricFigureContextFirst-time bar passage72%6 pts below the national midpointNational first-time average~75 to 80%Varies year to yearPrimary jurisdictionOregonState of recordU.S. News rank#80Peer-tier context

Is Lewis and Clark Law School’s Bar Passage Rate Good?

It is solidly average, 72% sits inside the national 75 to 80% band. At this range, the state being measured and the credentials of the entering class explain most of the picture, which is why the 509 breakdown matters more than the headline.

Placed on the national curve, Lewis and Clark Law School’s 72% lands 6 points below the midpoint of the 75 to 80% band, a gap large enough that no single factor should be allowed to explain it without evidence.

What a Bar Passage Rate Actually Measures

Bar rates are built, not bestowed, from three materials: who enrolled (medians forecast passage with uncomfortable accuracy), what the program demanded (curves, writing, doctrine), and who remained to be counted (attrition quietly edits the denominator). A school controls each lever differently, which is why the honest comparison is never rate against rate, but rate against inputs, against jurisdiction, against the count of who actually sat.

Withheld Tip: the ABA 509 disclosure is published annually for every accredited school and breaks bar results out by jurisdiction. Pull it, find the state line, and check whether the state you actually intend to practice in appears at all, a New York rate tells a California-bound student almost nothing. Verify the rate for your state, not the school’s headline.

Bar Prep, and the Exam That’s Changing

Like most ABA-accredited schools, Lewis and Clark Law School supports bar preparation through commercial-course partnerships, readiness programming, and faculty advising, ask admissions for specifics rather than assuming the label covers the substance.

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.

The rule: no jurisdiction, no judgment. Until you know which state’s exam a rate describes, the figure cannot be compared, contextualized, or trusted, and any school materials that present it bare are asking you not to check.

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.

Lewis and Clark Law School Bar Passage: Quick Answers

What is Lewis and Clark Law School’s bar passage rate?

Approximately 72% of graduates pass on the first attempt, in line with the national 75 to 80% average. Verify the jurisdiction breakdown in the ABA 509 before comparing it to any other school’s figure.

Why do bar passage rates differ so much between schools?

Different inputs, different exams, different denominators. Admitted-student medians drive much of it; state difficulty drives more; and attrition policy quietly shapes who gets counted. Strip those out and the remaining gap, the part that is actually about teaching, is smaller than the raw numbers suggest.

Does a high bar passage rate mean better teaching?

Sometimes. A strong rate built on strong inputs and low attrition is the genuine article; a strong rate built on heavy academic dismissal is a denominator trick. The 509 lets you tell the difference in about ten minutes.

Related Playbooks

• Lewis and Clark Law School LSAT Score: What You Need
• Lewis and Clark Law School Tuition: What It Really Costs
• Lewis and Clark Law School Employment Outcomes
• 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.