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Florida Law
FAMU Law Gains Credibility
LeRoy Pernell's overhaul of the once-troubled law school leads to full accreditation.
FAMU law school dean LeRoy Pernell: “Full accreditation feels very good. What feels best is it gives you the freedom to really move ahead and get some other things done.” |
Before he could focus on accreditation, Pernell, who joined FAMU after 10 years as dean of Northern Illinois University’s law school, had to boost morale at the Orlando campus and instill a sense of confidence that the law school could actually survive.
» Initial Steps: “The first thing I tried to do is make it clear to not only the folks here at the law school but with the central administration as to the direction and vision for the school. There was a lot of reassurance that had to be given to students that this would be an institution that met their needs now and would give them what they needed in the future to practice law. A lot of it was talking, meeting with people, hearing their concerns. I came here having been involved with accrediting law schools in a number of situations, being part of inspection teams, heading inspection teams and coming off 10 years of being dean at another law school. And those things I think gave folks a greater sense of confidence that they could move forward.”
Passing the Bar Exam results at Florida’s law schools: |
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Law School | Bar Exam Takers |
% Passing |
Florida International University | 27 | 81.5% |
Stetson University | 75 | 80% |
Nova Southeastern University | 40 | 72.5% |
St. Thomas University | 27 | 70.4% |
Florida Coastal University | 59 | 66.1% |
Florida State University | 40 | 65% |
University of Florida | 37 | 64.9% |
University of Miami | 36 | 61.1% |
Barry University | 22 | 54.5% |
Florida A&M University | 44 | 52.3% |
Non-Florida law school grads | 377 | 73.7% |
Total | 784 | 70.7% |
Source: Florida Board of Bar Examiners, February exam |
» Raising the Bar: “For accreditation purposes, a 75% passage rate is the expectation by the ABA, but the ABA also looks at a couple of different variations on that. The ABA recognizes that schools have different students and different abilities. They want you to at least be able to show that ultimately you have sufficient members of your graduating class that are members of the Bar, and we met that standard. But I’m optimistic and Pollyannaish enough to shoot for 100%. We brought in at least three or four new legal writing people this past year. We have these two new people in the Bar preparation program coming in. There will be student tutors. Our goal is to give students the opportunity for membership in the Florida Bar earlier, so that they are successful the first time.”