THE LEGAL FRONT

By JUSTICE ART D. BRION (RET.)

Philippine Bar history did not change its trajectory at all when the Supreme Court swore in the new 2018 lawyers. The Bar passing rate, although in the low side at 22.07%, was still within the established 20%-30% national average.

An eye-catching feature, as discerned from media reports, was the relative calm that surrounded the ceremony: the nation did not appear disturbed at all by the 2018 Bar candidates’ lackluster performance, nor by what this development implied – the overall low level of excellence in training the professionals who would handle the nation’s laws and the citizenry’s lives, liberties, and properties.

We did not appear to care at all that, on the average, some 75 out of every 100 of our students flunk the Bar exam and essentially waste 8 years of their lives preparing for a profession they can never claim for themselves nor practice with distinction if they pass the Bar at all.

We did not likewise appear to mind the waste of time, money, efforts that every failed Bar examinee represents. Also lost to many was the possibility that an unsuccessful Bar examinee could have brilliantly performed elsewhere had he/she channeled his energies into the proper direction.

We appeared to disregard, too, the most obvious cause of the Bar mortality – the law schools, in particular, the sub-performing ones who continue to enjoy the authority to accept enrollees although they have lost, by their mediocre performance, every right to educate students in the field of law.

Even the top-tier law schools appeared smugly happy because they have individually delivered the high-flying Bar topnotchers. For some reason, they did not appear to be bothered at all by the pervasive mediocrity surrounding them, thereby impliedly accepting for the Bar exams the characteristic configuration of our larger society – small islands of abundance in a massive sea of scarcity.

This is not the 1^st time I am voicing out these sentiments.  In the Bar oathtaking of 2015, I highlighted the plight of those who were not in the ceremony – the Bar flunkers.  In a recent article – Reverse Roll of Honor, I articulated my continuing frustrations due to the law schools’ dismal Bar passing records. I provided as well the damning evidence –  the statistics covering almost 20 years of Bar exams and law school performance.

I again focus on this proof today by giving the public the 2018 Bar Statistics that my previous article did not show because they were not then available.

The 2018 Bar exams saw 131 participating law schools whose candidates the Court judged for Bar admission using the usual 75% pass/fail cut off.

The starting shocker is that in 25 (or 19.08%) of our law schools, all the Bar candidates failed. Thus, roughly one-fifth (1/5) of our law schools had a 0% passing rate in the 2018 Bar exams.

Only less than 10% of the candidates in 32 (or 24.48%) of our law schools passed, while 37 (or 28.24%) law schools had passing rates ranging from 10% to less than 22.07%  –  the national Bar exam passing average.

In outline form, these ranges and the number of sub-performing law schools are:

• 0% passing rate - 25 law schools
• above 0% to less than 10% passing rate - 32 law schools
• 10% to less than 22.07% passing rate             - 37 law schools

Sub-total                                                                  - 94 law schools out of 131

The following more positive statistics complete and somehow brighten up the bleak 2018 Bar picture:

• 07% to less than 30% passing rate - 12 law schools
• 30% to less than 50% passing rate - 15 law schools
• 50% or more passing rate - 10 law schools

Sub-total                                                                 - 37 law schools out of 131

Note how stilted the level of performance is in favor of mediocrity.  The non-performing law schools (94) are by far more numerous than those (37) whose graduates reached  the court’s 75% cut-off point.  I leave it to the public to decide how many of the successful 37 really deserve the title “law school.”

Factors beyond the law schools, of course, contribute to the dismal Bar results but the law school factor outweighs them all.  We simply have law schools that, by all accounts, should no longer be engaged in legal education; we likewise accept students that, from Day 1 of law school, are already Bar flunkers.

In fairness to the authorities, in particular, to the Legal Education Board (LEB) and the Supreme Court, they have done what they could in the past and are still currently exerting efforts to improve legal education.

The LEB has undertaken many meaningful regulatory initiatives but has also met many stumbling blocks in performing its functions, some of them strewn by legal education stakeholders themselves.  An example is the use of centralized admission exams by law schools – a process that would deny admission to the unfit and the unprepared, but which would have limited the enrolment (and income) of many law schools.

In no small measure, the law profession and the justice system to which lawyers heavily contribute, are stable because the court, through the years, has remained a steady gatekeeper in the admission to the practice of law.

To its credit, irrespective of legal education and Bar exams developments, the court has steadfastly sought – through the Bar examinations – to maintain the standards of the legal profession at their highest. Though generally unrecognized, the recent 22.07% passing rate is the result of this laudable effort.

But the court and the LEB, solely on their own, cannot deliver the ideal that everyone wishes to see. Other stakeholders have to actively help by undertaking their respective roles. They cannot simply look up to the authorities for solutions nor consider only their narrow self-interests in considering problems.

Those in the frontlines – in particular, the school owners, the deans and other members of the academe  – have to contribute to the political will to generate the critical mass necessary to effect meaningful and lasting changes.

I hope the readers will react to these latest statistics by sending in their comments, so that I can in turn submit these to the Supreme Court’s Legal Education Summit this coming July.

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