Jurisdictions like North Dakota are incredibly small--just 62 people took the bar, which likely explains some of the great volatility in scores, as each test-taker represents almost 2 points in the overall pass rate. July 2013 had a 76% overall pass rate, which plunged to 63% last year and bobbed back up to 69% this year. But more importantly, their first-time pass rate increased 15 points, from 64% to 79%, which resembles the 81% first-time pass rate from July 2013.

I've also added a little historical perspective for these bar exams. I've added charts beside the table showing the overall July pass rate (in North Carolina's case, the first-time pass rate) since 2010. In many jurisdictions, this is a six-year low, and it might be the lowest in quite some time. In most jurisdictions, it's the lowest or second-lowest in the six-year window of data. (The charts are slightly deceptive because the axes all end near the bottom of the pass rate range and doesn't go all the way down to 0%; perhaps not obviously to all, most graduates still pass the bar in these jurisdictions, but the charts reflect the relative changes within a small band in recent years.)

*(As an important caveat, I recognize that there are many measures of "student quality" or "law school graduate quality," and that the bar exam is but one measure of that. But, assuming, which may be even too big an assumption for many, that the bar exam presents, very roughly, a proxy for those who have the minimum capability to practice law, and the pass rates continue to decline, then we can, very roughly, say that there has been a "decline" in "law school graduate quality," at least as evaluated by this one metric. Perhaps there are other metrics, or perhaps there are better metrics, but this is how I use the term here.)