This report focuses on some recent research findings that FINRA considers noteworthy because of their potential importance, frequency, and impact on investors and markets. This report does not provide a complete inventory of the observations of all FINRA audits, nor does it indicate that specific problems exist for certain companies. In fact, a sole proprietorship may not have defects identified in this report or may have other deficiencies that are not identified. In addition, readers should not interpret this report as creating new legal or regulatory requirements or new interpretations of existing requirements. With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is one of the largest professional volunteer organizations in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA strives to improve the administration of justice, promote programs that support lawyers and judges in their work, accredit law schools, provide legal education, and increase public understanding of the importance of the rule of law around the world. Check out our online privacy policy and follow the latest ABA news on www.americanbar.org/news and Twitter @ABANews. The ABA`s Legal Fact Check is designed to help the media and the public find reliable answers and explanations to legal questions and issues. Visit www.abalegalfactcheck.com and follow us on Twitter @ABAFactCheck. As part of the changes made by the Council, law schools are required to make reasonable efforts to report the results of the bar exam for all graduates in the ultimate categories and for the first time. Until now, bar exam reports were sufficient for public reports if they reported more than 70% or more of a class of graduates. FINRA`s audit, monitoring and risk monitoring programs play a central role in supporting FINRA`s investor protection and market integrity mission.

A major component of this program is FINRA`s dealer investigations (companies or members), where FINRA prepares a report that is only available to the company in question and addresses certain aspects of the Company`s compliance with certain securities laws and regulations. Companies need to address the issues identified by FINRA, and many do so by taking proactive corrective action before completing our audit. With this type of rapid clean-up, companies are strengthening their compliance and oversight programs, which ultimately helps to better protect investors and maintain market integrity. Currier explained that the board change “allows for more up-to-date information to be collected and reported,” which should be especially useful for prospective law students when choosing schools. “It also gives us insight into the performance of law graduates in each school over a two-year period,” Currier added. In addition, he noted that the data show that law school graduates sit primarily for the bar association immediately or shortly after graduation. FINRA anticipates that these reports will evolve over time as we ensure they support corporate compliance, risk management and oversight efforts. FINRA welcomes feedback on how we can improve the content, structure, format or other elements of future reports on audit results. If you have any suggestions, please contact Carlo di Florio, Executive Vice President, Member Oversight/Shared Services, at (212) 858-3908 or by email; or Steven Polansky, Senior Director, Member Supervision/Shared Services, at (202) 728-8331 or by email. CHICAGO, 22. March 2018 – The Office of the Executive Director of the ABA`s Legal Education and Bar Admission Section today released a comprehensive dataset on the results of the lawyers` passage for ABA-approved law schools, showing that a total of nearly 9 in 10 law graduates in 2015 who passed the bar exam passed it within two years of graduation.

FINRA is publishing this report as another resource for companies to strengthen their compliance programs and supervisory controls. Some companies have asked FINRA to make public a summary of the findings of the company`s audit program so that they can further improve their practices and processes based on the experience of other companies and better anticipate and address potential issues before their own audits. The new report is the result of an amendment made by the Section`s Council, which is its governing body and the national accreditation body for law schools, and removes information on the lawyer`s passage from the Standard 509 consumer information reports of law schools published in the autumn. Instead, counsel required law schools to produce a separate report on the findings of the lawyer`s passage, filed in February. In addition, for the first time, schools were asked to provide final cash pass data (this time for 2015 calendar year graduates who had passed a bar exam within two years of graduating from law school). Council plans to continue this report in the future and will report next year on the two-year results of the 2016 Graduate Bar Exam. The report also describes practices that FINRA has observed to be effective in certain circumstances and that companies can use as a resource to improve their compliance and oversight programs. However, it should not be concluded that FINRA requires companies to adopt certain practices described in this report or those that go beyond the requirements of existing securities rules and regulations. “This information is published in aggregate form of consumer information under ABA 509,” said Barry Currier, executive director of the section. This report is not a compliance report for ABA 316, which sets the standard for bar passage.

This is an independent and independent issue. But these reports provide important consumer information for students wondering if and where to attend law school, and for others interested in legal education. The Board appreciates the work done by law schools to collect and communicate more comprehensive data on the cash flows of their graduates,” added Mr. Currier. Although the first results of the passage of the bar have been reported on an academic basis in the past, this report represents the first time that the section has published the initial and final results in this form. The spreadsheets are available on the webpage in the section under Legal Education Statistics. The report shows that while results vary from school to school, 87.83 percent of those who graduated from law school in 2015 and passed a bar exam passed it within two years of graduation, either on their first or subsequent attempt. The overall success rates for the first classes in 2016 and 2017 were 74.3% and 77.2%, respectively.

As the 2015 final results show, these early success rates are likely to increase in subsequent audit administrations. For more information, please contact: Bar.Admissions@iowacourts.gov The Iowa Council of Law Examiners oversees the admission process to the Iowa Bar Association. The admissions process includes those who must pass an exam to obtain admission, as well as admitted attorneys from other jurisdictions who wish to practice in Iowa. If you already have a license in another jurisdiction, learn how to get a license in Iowa. Contact: Bar.Admissions@iowacourts.gov if you have any further questions. For more information on how to register for the Iowa Bar Exam, please visit this website.