Scores consistent with previous years, says regulator — if you don’t count students who encountered IT issues
The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has released the pass rates for two of the three August bar exams that were marred by technical problems.
The regulator told Legal Cheek that the pass rate for candidates who experienced no IT failures was 65% for civil litigation and 68% for criminal litigation. In both cases this was consistent with previous years.
It did not disclose what the overall pass rates were if students who did have problems were included, but the Law Society Gazette reports that pass rates fall to 48% for civil and 51% for criminal if they are taken into account.
Results for the third exam, professional ethics, come out next month.
The BSB has previously admitted that around one third of people sitting the online bar exams in August experienced technical problems. Some were able to resit last week and others will in December.
A BSB spokesperson told Legal Cheek that “a majority of students were able to sit the exams and our Chair and our Director General have apologised to students who were unable to complete them”. The organisation has commissioned an independent review of the fiasco.