Legal circles in Kenya are sounding the alarm following the latest Kenya School of Law (KSL) bar exam results, which show that a large number of candidates continue to struggle to pass.
New data from the Council of Legal Education (CLE) indicate that out of 1,834 candidates who sat the November 2025 Advocates Training Programme (ATP) exams, only 397 passed all nine required units.
The results also revealed that female candidates performed better than their male counterparts, highlighting a notable gender performance gap. Passing the ATP is a mandatory step for admission to the High Court as advocates.
The ATP examinations, which took place from November 13 to 25, require candidates to pass all nine units to qualify for admission. In a public notice on its website, CLE acknowledged a downward trend in performance.
“Overall, the November 2025 examinations reflect a dip in performance compared to the November 2024 ATP examination,” the regulator said, though it did not provide immediate measures to reverse the decline.
A total of 2,968 candidates sat the exams, including 1,835 regular students and 1,133 resit candidates. Among the subjects, Trial Advocacy (ATP 104) recorded the highest pass rate of 97.49 per cent, while Professional Ethics (ATP 105) again posted the lowest pass rate at 25.38 per cent.
CLE noted that this marks the third year in a row that Professional Ethics has had the weakest results.
The data show that bar exam failures have been a persistent problem for about 15 years, raising concerns over prolonged resits and delayed legal careers.
Candidates must pass all nine units within five years of their first attempt to qualify. Failure to do so requires them to restart the entire programme, and some candidates have taken as long as 15 years to become advocates.
Passing each unit requires a minimum of 50 per cent, with scores divided into 60 per cent written exams, 20 per cent oral assessments, and 20 per cent from a written project. Successful candidates must also complete a six-month supervised pupillage.
Despite the troubling results, CLE says it has introduced reforms to improve the administration, marking, and release of exams. The regulator emphasized that these changes are part of its wider goal to cultivate innovative legal professionals through transformative legal education.
