83% of St. Thomas University's first-time Florida Bar takers pass exam

STU's Benjamin L. Crump College of Law raises academic standards, anticipates expansion

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla., Sept. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- St. Thomas University's Benjamin L. Crump College of Law will celebrate today a record number of law students passing the bar on the first try. Because of increasing enrollment and interest, STU officials are considering options to potentially expand the College of Law, to include a new state-of-the-art law complex on campus.

More than eight in 10 (83%) of STU's first-time test takers passed the July bar, an STU Law all-time high that is also 6.4 percentage points higher than the statewide average of 76.6%, according to newly released results from the Florida Board of Examiners. 

STU Law finished fifth out of 12 accredited Florida law schools for first-time bar passage results for the newly released July figures and second out of 12 for the February bar passage results announced last April.

STU Law's standout bar exam performance comes as the university anticipates adding a new state-of-the-art law school building. Potential sites include land adjacent to NW 32nd Avenue on the southeast corner of the university's Miami Gardens campus. 

Incoming LSAT scores and GPAs for STU Law students continue to climb as higher admissions standards and an increasingly customized educational approach lure STU Law's highest-performing class of students. 

The top third of STU's 2024 law school class earned an LSAT score of 155 and a grade point average of 3.59 compared with 151 and 3.36 in 2014. STU Law's enrollment recently rocketed to a record 395 1L students (822 overall) for the fall 2024 semester, up 66% from 238 in 2023 and 132% from 170 in 2018, when STU President David A. Armstrong, J.D., assumed office. 

"Excellence is STU Law's primary goal. Growth is the byproduct," said Tarlika Nuñez-Navarro, Dean of the College of Law. "We will always take a boutique approach to teaching students of every color and creed how to realize their dreams."

STU Law is known for providing more opportunities to traditionally underrepresented students than most law schools nationwide. The Benjamin L. Crump College of Law's student body is 85% non-white (80% Black and Latino), including first-generation college students. 

STU Law trails only a pair of Puerto Rican law schools and one at Howard University, an HBCU, for the distinction of America's most diverse law school.

"The Benjamin L. Crump College of Law is devoted to giving every kind of American a chance to succeed," said President David A. Armstrong, J.D. "If the law is the axis upon which America turns, STU's law school graduates will provide the momentum, from writing laws to righting wrongs."

Among other recent accomplishments, STU law students won back-to-back Chester Bedell Memorial Mock Trial Competitions hosted by the Florida Bar Association's Trial Lawyers Section in 2023 and 2024. The law school also has prioritized connecting students with high-level legal professionals for mentorship and practical lessons by recruiting a whopping 18 active judges to teach during the 2024-25 academic year.

STU Law students often shadow Dean Nuñez-Navarro and other law school administrators at events statewide. As an STU alumna, Nuñez-Navarro knows firsthand how the law school helps students realize dreams. She left her Ninth Judicial Circuit Court judgeship presiding over the Felony Criminal Division in Orange County, Florida, to become Dean in August 2023.

High standards will continue to drive STU Law's growth as the university pushes 100% of students to take STU's bar prep course. The university will continue steering students to actively engage in bar prep courses, staging multi-day test simulations, baking mini-bar lessons into all three years of law school, and holding cross-disciplinary professorial seminars to dissect bar essay topics. 

STU Law will host a ceremony at 4 p.m. today to induct new attorneys to the Florida Bar in the university's moot courtroom. Law school and university administrators will celebrate the new practicing attorneys alongside their family and friends and local judges, including Miami Dade County Court Judge Yara Lorenzo Klukas, Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Florida Judge Elaine A. Carbuccia and 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida Judge Peter R. Lopez. 

About St. Thomas University 
St. Thomas University (STU) is a private, non-profit Catholic institution committed to the academic and professional success of its students who become ethical leaders in our global community. Rich with cultural and international diversity, STU is the only Catholic Archdiocesan university in Florida. On our beautiful campus and online, the university's College of Health Sciences & Technology, Benjamin L. Crump College of Law, Gus Machado College of Business, and Biscayne College for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences offer 61 undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degree programs. In 2020, STU launched our Limitless five-year strategic plan based on the pillars of limitless Devotion, limitless Opportunities, and limitless Results. The plan was conceived to provide students with a magical collegiate experience that incorporates mentoring faculty, character formation activities outside the classroom, and required real-world experience before graduation.

Contact: Dan Axelrod | St. Thomas University | [email protected] | 305.474.2418

SOURCE St. Thomas University