By Tim Woods

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Baylor Law School capped a good week by learning it once again led Texas law schools in passage rates on the Texas State Bar Exam, the sixth consecutive time the school has done so.

Forty-six of the 48 Baylor students who took the bar exam in February passed on their first try. That rate, 95.83 percent, easily eclipses the overall state passage rate of 85.01.

Since 2002, Baylor Law School has led the state in passage rate 10 times.

Baylor law students and graduates are making news elsewhere, too.

Josh Fogelman and Jeff Watters, who graduated Saturday, will join two other former Baylor law students, Katy Boatman and Ashley Franklin, as clerks for the Texas Supreme Court. With four of the court’s 18 clerks, 22 percent of the 2008-09 Texas Supreme Court clerks will be Baylor-trained.

Law school dean Brad Toben said the honor of clerking for Texas’ Supreme Court isn’t to be taken lightly. The positions are highly sought, and clerks will aid Supreme Court justices in drafting opinions and legal research.

Also, Baylor Law School alumnus Roland Johnson, of Fort Worth, was elected Wednesday as president-elect of the State Bar of Texas for 2009-10.

Given the law school’s success, it’s no surprise Johnson will succeed another Baylor law graduate, Harper Estes, in the presidency. Estes begins his term in June.

Toben said having back-to-back Baylor lawyers in the presidency is a great accomplishment, as Baylor lawyers make up merely 7 percent of the state bar.

The string of successes is a result of the school’s demanding training, Toben said. Baylor Law School has been dubbed “the Marine Corps of law schools” by the Princeton Law Review.

“I attribute it to the fact that we have a program that is certainly rigorous,” Toben said. “But I also would add that we teach our students that they are part of a serving profession, that they have obligations as a member of an honorable profession. That’s a message that we consistently try to convey to our students, and they get it.”

twoods@wacotrib.com

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