Following up on my earlier submit, Methodology Modifications In The New 2024 U.S. Information Regulation College Rankings:  Derek Muller (Iowa; Google Scholar), Does a College’s “Final Bar Passage” Charge Relate to That College’s High quality?:

With a lack of information that USNWR used to make use of to evaluate the standard of regulation faculties, USNWR needed to depend on ABA information. And it was already assessing one form of final result, first-time bar passage charge.

It launched “final bar passage” charge as an element on this yr’s methodology, with a whopping 7% of the full rating. That’s increased than the median LSAT rating now. It’s additionally a lot increased than the at-graduation [jobs] charge in earlier methodologies (4%). …

The ABA’s “final” normal is just a flooring for accreditation functions. Only a few faculties fail this normal. The statistic, and the cutoff, are designed for a minimal check of whether or not the regulation college is functioning appropriately, at a really fundamental stage. (It’s additionally a bit round, as I’ve written about—why does the ABA have to accredit faculties separate and other than the bar examination if it’s referring to accreditation requirements as passing the bar examination?) …

The ABA’s “final” normal is just a flooring for accreditation functions. Only a few faculties fail this normal. The statistic, and the cutoff, are designed for a minimal check of whether or not the regulation college is functioning appropriately, at a really fundamental stage. (It’s additionally a bit round, as I’ve written about—why does the ABA have to accredit faculties separate and other than the bar examination if it’s referring to accreditation requirements as passing the bar examination?) …

One other oddity is that the correlation between first-time passage charge (that’s, over- and under-performance relative to the jurisdiction) and supreme bar passage charge is nice, however at 0.68 one may anticipate two totally different bar passage measures to be extra intently correlated. And perhaps that’s good to not have measures so intently sure with each other. However these are actually each bar passage classes. And so they appear to be measuring fairly various things. …

I believe there’s one other unspoken cause for utilizing this metric: it’s publicly accessible. Now that quite a few regulation faculties have “boycotted” the rankings, USNWR has needed to depend on publicly accessible information. They took out some components they usually devalued others. However right here’s some publicly accessible information from the ABA. It’s an “output,” one thing USNWR values extra now. It’s about bar passage, which is one thing it’s already taking a look at. It’s there. So, it’s getting used. It makes extra sense than the purported justifications that USNWR provides.

And it’s given 7% within the new rankings. That’s a stunning quantity of weight.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/06/muller-critiques-the-7-weighting-of-ultimate-2-year-bar-passage-rates-in-the-us-news-law-school-rank.html