The University of Iowa College of Law recently announced that they achieved monumental results for graduates on the State of Iowa Bar Exam.

On the July 2024 test, students attained a 98 percent first-time passage rate, with 53 out of 54 test takers passing on their first attempt, according to release from the UI. Compared to the July 2023 test takers, there was a 5 percent increase in first-time passage rate for students from the Iowa College of Law.

Dawn Barker Anderson, a professor of legal analysis, writing, and research at the UI College of Law, has an important role in the preparation and success of students taking the Bar Exam at Iowa. Anderson also leads the Writing and Academic Success Center at the university.

Anderson teaches an introduction to law course that helps students be successful from the beginning of law school.

“It helps introduce case methods and the pedagogy and rigor of law school to incoming students,” she said. “I also do something called the ‘Tuesday Talk About It’ that offers workshops for academic and career success in law. Additionally, we offer a Bar preparation course for third-year students that recently had a significant increase in student enrollment.”

While there is no specific law major in the UI’s undergraduate program, there is a pre-law track. Students with majors from English to Political Science to History most commonly take the pre-law track, but there is a diverse offering of students in the law school who studied chemistry or even music theory, Anderson said.

“The last four years, we’ve really been focusing on the Bar passage rates at the University of Iowa College of Law. And it’s increased over these last four years,” Anderson said. “We offer preparation courses for students in their third year of the law program and summer support groups for students getting ready for the Bar.”

Isabelle Breitfelder, an alumna of the UI College of Law, describes how important preparing for the Bar Exam is and how the UI helps students get themselves ready for what lies ahead in law school.

“In the first year of law school, the administration broke us into groups and talked to us about the Bar right from the beginning,” Breitfelder said. “The law school helps guide you through the whole process.”

Breitfelder, now a law clerk in Washington State, emphasizes the importance of resources she found helpful at the UI as a student.

“The professors and career services really helped get me to where I’m at,” she said. Whether it was finding job opportunities for me and sending them to me, or reviewing my resume and writing letters of recommendation, helping prepare for interviews, and helping me decide what position to eventually take in my career.”

Ella McDonald, a current pre-law student at the UI, is studying criminology with a minor in human relations. She has also found that resources on campus help prepare students for law school and are a crucial step in moving forward towards a career.

“I think that Phi Alpha Delta — the law fraternity — has helped me prepare a lot and has been the greatest resource I’ve found,” McDonald said. “I get to talk to people in law school and professors, as well as explore opportunities beyond school. Professors have been great resources as well by answering questions or just having conversations with me about law school. The interactions I have with them and that they have with the students really connects us.”

McDonald also said her experience with a variety of classes in preparation for law school has been a benefit.

Courses in the criminology and anthropology branch are helpful to the pre-law track, assisting in learning ways of thinking that enhance debate and case study knowledge, McDonald explains. Classes such as Intro to the Legal System and Practice caters students to a variety of law fields and options available post-graduation.

Additionally, these classes have been critical to the development of students as they transfer from undergraduate education to graduate school, particularly in the law program, Anderson highlights.

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“The pre-law program has an outstanding curriculum,” Anderson explains. “The emphasis on writing helps develop those crucial law skills such as communication which is necessary in a variety of careers. The breadth and the design of the curriculum helps students get a wide range of preparation for law school.”

Undergraduate pre-law programs and law school have significant differences. Still, the courses and the opportunities available are plentiful for students pursuing their degree.

“Pre-law is just a designation. You can major in whatever you want to go to law school, and every student’s experience in law school is different. My classes were very writing intensive, which helped me a lot with law school and helped me prepare for the amount of writing you do in the legal field.”

The law school has become known as the “writing law school” because of its production of outstanding employment numbers across the nation. In fact, the UI a is number 35 in the nation as a go-to law school for “Big Law” jobs, according to Law.com. “Big Law” jobs refer to the largest and most prestigious law firms that operate across multiple offices, states, or even countries in the world.

“We have a really diverse and equal placement for careers after graduation in the law school,” Anderson said. “Most students go to private law firms, public interest positions, or judicial partnerships.”

Students acknowledge the advanced programs available at Iowa, particularly at the College of Law. Breitfelder recalls the experience of law school and how everywhere has something different to offer.

“I think that the law school experience depends a lot on where you go,” Breitfelder said. “What drew me to Iowa Law in the first place were the experiential courses because I knew the reason I wanted to become a lawyer was that I wanted to be in the courtroom. Those experiential classes were really important to me in terms of preparation and Iowa Law had those.”

McDonald also remembers considering other schools in the undergraduate college application process but was drawn to the UI.

“If I’d gone to another school besides the University of Iowa, I believe it would’ve been different,” McDonald said. “This is the best school I applied to in terms of making connections for post-graduation. Other schools didn’t offer as many programs or options, and I never would’ve been able to be this involved if I went somewhere else.”

The UI offers the Bar exam every July, with results published the following September. Law students can find preparation courses through the UI, as well as external sources.

“My advice for students preparing for the Bar is to treat it like a job,” Breitfelder recommends. “You don’t study 24/7 — you need to take time off. I studied at the library, but then I went home at the end of the day and relaxed. Bar prep doesn’t have to be your entire life. If that was all I did, it would’ve actually been detrimental to my studying and being productive.”