If you are reading this before you actually need a Michigan Bar Appeal, or before the official results are released, you’re too worried or morbidly curious. The release of Michigan Bar Examination results is a time frought with joy and anguish. Not everyone gets the news they want. But before you start reading though your study materials again, you need to consider your choices. The Michigan Board of Law Examiners has a procedure that allows those candidates who did not pass the Michigan Bar Examination, to appeal the results of their essay scores. This procedure is found in Michigan Court Rules 9.1 et seq. See, 7 Rules For The Board Of Law Examiners (pdf) for the exact rules and procedure. As of the publication of this piece, Michigan’s passing score is still 135 out of 200 (67.5%).
Assuming that you did not pass the bar, you first need to consider whether you should do an appeal or not. As a rule of thumb, if you need more than 10 raw points, a successful appeal will prove difficult. Raw points are the points derived from the essay scores before they are calculated with your MBE score. The formula used to equalize the MBE and Essay scores is as follows: Raw Score from all 15 essays x 4/3 = adjusted score. The adjusted score is then modified by the ‘curve’ determined by the Board of Law Examiners. In February 2009, this curve added approximately 5.66 points to the adjusted raw score. By the way, that formula is not disclosed to the public. By calculating your adjusted score, you should be able to determine how many raw points (i.e. extra essay points) you need to boost your score to an overall score of 135.
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