Campbell Law graduates earn highest overall bar exam pass rate in more than a decade

RALEIGH- Campbell Law School saw its highest overall pass rate - 94.55 percent - for first-time exam takers on the July 2025 North Carolina Bar Exam since 2012, when it was 94.53 percent.

This year, a total of the 166 exam takers from Campbell Law passed, including all but one of the 11 repeat takers, resulting in an overall pass rate of 94.32 percent.

The news had Dean J. Rich Leonard "elated."

"Our 94.32 percent overall pass rate is the highest during my 13-year tenure as dean," Leonard said. "We had the largest group of bar exam takers of any North Carolina school this year. I am so proud of our graduates who stayed focused to prepare for the bar exam."

In an email to the faculty and staff, he wrote:"Kudos to Associate Dean Sha Hinds-Glick, Director Meredith Chilausky and to all of you."

Campbell Law led the state in first-time, repeater and overall pass rate, only second to Duke University School of Law, which had a first-time 100 percent pass rate for its 22 N.C. bar exam takers and an overall pass rate of 96.65 percent.

In all, 87 percent of first-time testers from the seven North Carolina law schools as well as out-of-state law schools passed the examination. Of the 805 total applicants who sat for the N.C. exam, 79 percent passed.

Campbell Law ranks among the nation's top law schools for bar exam overperformance, according to the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. Campbell Law's ABA Ultimate Bar Passage Rate, which indicates bar exam passage within two years of graduation, is 96 percent as of March 2024.

"We tell prospective students from the moment that they begin the admissions process, as well as our current students throughout their three years here, that we will stick with them until they get their license," Leonard added. "These latest bar exam results show that we are true to our word, and that we take this commitment as seriously as possible."

ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW SCHOOL

Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion, and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation's top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation's best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts more than 5,000 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2026, Campbell Law will celebrate 50 years of graduating legal leaders and 17 years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina's Capital City.

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