Because I often write about and analyze bar exam results from various jurisdictions, when the results from the exam are released from certain states, I receive very interesting emails. That said, the dismal results from the February 2018 administration of the Arizona bar exam were recently released, and no one was particularly thrilled about the state’s 42.5 percent pass rate, despite the fact that it had increased by a measure of 1.5 percentage points from the February 2017 exam. Several email subject lines I received on the topic included: “Staci, this school is ruining AZ bar stats and ruining lives,” “you MUST write about this piece of sh*t school,” and last, but definitely not least, “F**K THIS F**KING F**K LAW SCHOOL.”

Today, we have the school-by-school breakdown of the February 2018 passage rates in Arizona, and as usual, one law school’s subpar results severely impacted the state’s overall pass rate, much like what we saw in the past several iterations of the exam.

To see what we’re talking about, take a look at this breakdown of results by in-state law schools, courtesy of the State of Arizona Committee on Examinations:

Congratulations to Arizona Summit Law School on improving its first-time bar pass rate by 1.6 percentage points to 31.1 percent. That’s really … something.

Arizona Bar Examination First Time Pass Rate Overall Pass Rate (includes repeaters) February 2014 54.5 48.8 February 2015 52.6 46.4 February 2016 38.1 28.4 February 2017 29.5 22.7 February 2018 31.1 19.8

As you may recall, AZ Summit is already on probation with the American Bar Association for its atrocious bar exam passage rates and was found noncompliant with another accreditation standard while already on probation. After screwing the pooch on the July 2017 exam, the school’s latest performance is sure to destroy any goodwill it had left with the ABA’s Accreditation Committee and the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.

Let’s not forget that the school has entered into a questionable affiliation agreement with Bethune-Cookman University, a historically black college. Don Lively, the president of Arizona Summit Law School, once said that the school is interested in “diversifying the nation’s least diverse white collar profession.” With the school’s latest 19.8 percent overall pass rate on the bar exam, perhaps one of our tipsters said it best: “God bless Don Lively and his contribution to ‘improving diversity’ in the legal profession.” How can Arizona Summit claim to be diversifying the legal profession when its graduates continue to fail the bar exam in record numbers? As my colleague Elie Mystal so eloquently stated when he last discussed the schools’ affiliation with Bethune-Cookman, “[g]oing to a law school like Arizona Summit doesn’t help black people, it hobbles them.” We hope students are able to see through this farce.

This all leads back to Arizona Summit’s continuing failed efforts to graduate classes that are capable of passing the bar. Arizona Summit may purport to offer opportunities to students that no other law schools would accept, but it seems that those “opportunities” include a lifetime of debt and an inability to pass the bar exam. One of the school’s own graduates once succinctly summarized the Arizona Summit experience: “It’s not a Summit; it’s Death Valley.”

Please do extensive research before investing in a law school education. You might be able to uncover facts like these that will make you change your mind.

Staci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.