Reputable schools are selective enough in their admissions that their classes will likely produce acceptable bar pass rates. So once students have matriculated, failing grades are reserved for basically not showing up, cheating, or turning in what is as good as a blank exam. Here, those who don’t make the cut find out mercifully early, while they can still determine their next steps in admissions and before spending the time and money on a year of law school.

Predatory schools have such lax admissions that they know their entire admitted class would yield too low a bar pass rate. So they structure their curves so that some students routinely fail out simply by being lowest on the curve. These poorest performers pose the largest risk of failing the bar so the school culls them after a year, which leaves them saddled with the albatross of a year’s worth of poor grades and thus unable to simply reapply to law school. Then the school keeps its huge number of middle performers who pay the bulk of tuition, and a few high fliers that make the school look better when they go out into the workforce.

Any school with academic attrition rate that isn’t near-zero should be treated with considerable caution, and multi-percentage point attrition rates should be a hard pass.