Last week I got the alert from the New York Law Journal that “Pass Rates Again Decline for State's July Bar Exam.”

I interviewed John McAlary, executive director of the New York State Board of Law Examiners in 2012 for an article on this same subject for my law school newspaper, and as a result of that conversation, I think this characterization of bar exam pass rates is misleading.

What Mr. McAlary explained to me was that the high pass rates of the last 10 years were unusually high. The more recent results mirror historical averages. In other words, 2008 was extraordinary. 2015 was normal. He explained to me that what raised the pass rate was the recession.