Ready to rally on the bar exam and beyond

But they’re not going it alone. The law school’s Rally the Pass initiative, now in its second year, provides a community of support and encouragement focused on getting them through what is, most likely, the most grueling stretch of studying they’ve ever done.

Rally the Pass serves as an umbrella for the many resources provided to help UB Law graduates stay on track.  That includes dedicated library space for bar prep, funding to offset exam fees for those with financial need, and help with unexpected, emergency expenses. Law school faculty provide special review sessions to complement commercial bar review courses, weekly emails are sent out with inspirational messages, and a fun incentive program helps motivate bar studiers to reach completion milestones throughout the ten-week prep period.  The ultimate goal for each test taker: complete at least 90 percent of their bar prep course, a level shown to increase their chances of passing the notorious exam.

Debuting in Spring 2024, the Rally the Pass initiative has quickly become an expected part of post-graduation life.

“There are a couple of things we learned last year that we’re trying to build on,” says William MacDonald, assistant dean for academic and bar success. “When we first launched the program, some students felt that it might feel intrusive if the law school was too involved in their summer bar prep. We’ve come to see that was not the case.”

The high rate of participation in this year’s program—over 90% of 2025 graduates signed up—indicates excitement to be part of the program. “It’s a cumulative response,” Macdonald says. “Students last year were able to say it was really helpful to be part of this, to be on campus with your classmates, studying together. People who have graduated and know some rising 3Ls have told them, ‘We did this last summer.  You should do it this summer.’ I’m very pleased with the way it has organically grown to be something people genuinely want to participate in.”

For one, students are flocking to the special bar review sessions offered by UB Law faculty. Attendance has doubled compared to the inaugural year, MacDonald says, with students joining both in person and online.

And, most importantly, bar passage results indicate that concentrated, enthusiastic support truly makes a difference. Last summer, 87.41 percent of first-time UB Law test takers rallied and passed the rigorous New York exam, the highest pass rate in the law school’s known history. To date, 94.4% of the Class of 2024 has passed the exam.

The exam looms near for this year’s graduates and being in the company of their peers can help them get to the finish line. “This is a very stressful time for them,” MacDonald says. “When you’re studying for 10 weeks, 50 to 60 hours a week or more, some students may question whether they need to keep up that pace. We want to reinforce that completing your bar prep makes a difference.”

Rally the Pass is the culmination of a series of supports that UB Law extends to students, starting the day they’re accepted into law school. It’s part of a portfolio of responsibility for Professor Christine Bartholomew in the newly created role of vice dean for student achievement.

The focus of the role is, as Bartholomew explains, to “take a step back and look holistically at how we’re doing with these initiatives and how they can be improved.” That includes Rally the Pass and other support initiatives for test-taking students, including the mini-bar exam held at the end of students’ first year to monitor their academic progress and familiarize them with the exam format.  Bartholomew works closely with MacDonald and Professor Patrick J. Long ’00, Assistant Dean for Professional Development.

More broadly, Bartholomew says she’ll be analyzing how well students are attaining the learning outcomes that the faculty has identified as crucial for their law school education. These outcomes include broad goals such as “exhibit competence in legal analysis, legal reasoning and problem-solving”; “communicate effectively in written and oral form”; and “develop a professional identity that reflects the ethics, foundational values and principles of the legal profession.”

“The law school has been working on these issues for years, and I’ve been lucky enough to assist in these undertakings,” Bartholomew says, including in her prior role as vice dean for academic affairs. “For each learning outcome, we gather data and information from students and faculty, and measure how each student is doing on each of these outcomes.”

It’s a strategy that universities and law schools are increasingly utilizing, Bartholomew says, and researchers are looking at how to achieve these outcomes most effectively. “There’s a lot of work being done to study why students succeed, how they succeed and what types of interventions can be done to help students who might need to bridge the gap,” she says. “It might be focus on a particular skill, like critical reading, or even a skill like time management. There are students who may have never picked up a particular skill as an undergrad, and if we can help them with it, they’ll be a phenomenal lawyer.”

Also on the horizon is a major change in format for the bar exam in New York, and several other states. Once it’s fully adopted in July 2029, the NextGen Bar Exam will test a broad range of foundational lawyering skills and replace the traditional essay part of the exam with fact scenarios requiring multiple choice or short answers.

“It looks closer to the type of work product a junior associate would be doing,” Bartholomew says. And the advent of the exam means UB Law will have to support both takers of the traditional bar exam and those in this year’s entering class, who’ll be the first graduates to take the NextGen test. That may involve changes or additions to the curriculum and new ideas for bar prep as well.

“We want to make sure we continue to provide our 2Ls and 3Ls with what they need but also ensure our 1Ls are ready for this new test,” Bartholomew says. “My job is to support the faculty as they help students prepare for the NextGen exam.”