UF’s Levin College of Law is making a comeback after dropping in rankings last spring.
UF now ranks No. 1 in Florida for the percentage of law students who passed the bar exam and No. 13 for “Best Value Law School,” according to The National Jurist magazine.
George Dawson, the UF Law interim dean, said students get a valuable education at a reasonable price, and the law school will continue to provide students with the resources they need to succeed.
“If we continue to do what we’re doing and our tuition continues to stay the same, I think we’ll continue to be high on the rankings,” he said.
In spring, the U.S. News & World Report ranked Florida State University above UF for the best law school. The drop came at a time when the UF college was in a transitioning phase to find a new dean for the school after Dean Robert Jerry retired.
When President Bernie Machen put the search for the new law dean on hold last spring, Dawson took over as interim dean for the college. Machen is expected to work on the search before he leaves his post in December.
Out of the 266 UF test-takers, 241 students passed the bar exam, leading to a 2.4-percent increase from the summer 2013 exam results, Matt Walker, a UF Law Communications spokesman, said.
The 90.6-percent passing rate is higher than UF’s past numbers.
Dawson said the passing rate for the bar exam usually falls between 86 and 88 percent.
“We’re pleased with the ranking and bar exam results,” Dawson said.
FSU is trailing behind UF’s ranking with a 81.8-percent passing rate, beating the University of Miami School of Law.
UF scored higher than the University of Tennessee on the “Best Value Law School” ranking, based on the law college’s cost of tuition, student debt, employment and bar passing rates.
Kristy Pinedo-Pimentel, 19, said she wants to go to law school out of state, but her biggest factor is finances.
“If I couldn’t afford to go to any other school, I would go to UF law,” the political science sophomore said.
She has toured the Levin College of Law and took a sample course that she enjoyed.
“The energy of the professors and students would definitely want to make me go to UF Law because they want to see you succeed,” she said.
