Civil Law questions Ched listing of top law schools

THE FACULTY of Civil Law was “disappointed” with its ranking as the seventh top law school in the country based on its bar exam passing rate, saying a list released recently by the Commission on Higher Educations (Ched) was “not that accurate.”

Civil Law officer-in-charge Augusto Aligada said UST has consistently been in the fourth place alongside San Beda College in producing the biggest number of lawyers every year.

UST garnered a 51.81-percent average in last year’s bar exam, way above the national passing rate of 20.58 percent.

“I am puzzled by the method by which [Ched] arrived at that conclusion because [it] should have considered the size of the school,” Aligada said.

UST dropped three notches from No. 4 in the 2008 ranking. The newly established De La Salle Professional Schools-Far Eastern University (FEU) Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Juris Doctor Dual Degree Program took its place this year.

Unlike rankings by the Professional Regulation Commissions which has separate lists for schools based on the number of examinees, the Ched’s roster lumped all law schools in one listing.

For instance, UST and the University of the Philippines (UP) belong to different categories in the Medicine board exam, since UST has more examinees than UP every year.

Established in 2003, the La Salle-FEU MBA Juris Doctor tie-up is a dual degree program that offers the Juris Doctor and MBA degrees concurrently. The program lessened the number of years spent to earn the degrees separately—to five years from six years.

Aligada pointed out there was a “huge difference” when it came to the number of new lawyers produced by each school.

“[Let’s] say La Salle-FEU had 25 graduates and 20 of them passed the exam, that would be an 80 percent passing rate. Say UST had 140 bar takers. If 100 of them passed, that would be a huge difference,” he explained.

The La Salle-FEU tie-up had a 77-percent passing rate last year, producing 24 lawyers, while UST had 100 new ones.

Ateneo de Manila University topped the Ched list, followed by San Beda College, and UP-Diliman. Others in the top 20 were Ateneo de Davao University, University of San Carlos, University of Cebu, University of Perpetual Help-Rizal, and Arellano University, Xavier University, Far Eastern University-Institute of Law, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, University of San Agustin, University of Batangas, Palawan State University, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, St. Louis University, Lyceum of the Philippines, and the San Sebastian College-Recolectos de Manila. Darenn G. Rodriguez