9th Bar Examination: 1,768 Pass the Exam... Pass Rate 53.31%

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] The passers of the 9th Bar Examination have been determined to be 1,768 out of 3,316 candidates, accounting for approximately 53.31%. The pass rate slightly increased compared to last year's 50.78%.

The bar exam pass rate has continuously declined since the first exam, which recorded 87.15%, due to the increase in the number of candidates. It dropped to 49.35% in 2018 but rebounded to 50.78% last year for the first time and continued to rise this year.

The gender ratio of this exam's passers was 54.98% male (972) and 45.02% female (756), showing a narrower gap between male and female passers compared to the previous exam's ratio (male 55.29%, female 44.71%).

The proportion of passers who majored in fields other than law during their undergraduate studies was 63.97%, noticeably higher than the previous exam's 50.78%.

For the 9th Bar Examination, the Management Committee decided to set the number of passers at 1,768, which is at least 75% (1,500 people) of the admission quota in principle, while comprehensively considering factors such as ‘the number and pass rate of previous bar exam passers, the purpose of introducing law schools, changes in the number of candidates, the supply and demand of legal professionals, academic management status, and grading results,’ as well as additional factors proposed by the subcommittee including ‘population and economic scale changes, and the number of legal professionals in major foreign countries,’ with a total score threshold of 900.29 points or higher.

The Minister of Justice accepted this and officially decided on 1,768 passers for the 9th Bar Examination.

A Ministry of Justice official explained, "The previous criteria for determining passers were applied as is, but additional factors suggested by the subcommittee were also reflected in the decision."

He added, "The Bar Examination Management Committee has deliberated and decided to apply the 9th Bar Examination pass criteria to the method for determining passers of the 10th Bar Examination next year to ensure predictability for candidates."

The Ministry of Justice plans to post the confirmed bar exam results and related statistics, including the number of passers by law school, on the Ministry of Justice website in May.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.