Bar topnotchers in the Philippines are bar examinees who garnered the highest bar exam grades in a particular year. Every year, the Supreme Court releases the bar top ten list. The list contains the names of bar examinees who obtained the ten highest grades. It is possible for more than ten examinees to place in the top ten because numerical ties in the computation of grades usually occur.List of Bar Topnotchers from 1913 to 2006, Office of the Bar Confidant, Supreme Court of the Philippines.
Overview From 1913 to 2025, schools which have produced bar topnotchers (1st placers) are as follows:
Two bar examinees topped the bar exams without officially graduating from any Philippine law school:
Jose W. Diokno – former Senator of the Philippines; 1st placer, 1945 bar exams. Diokno Sr., who tied for Number One with former Senate President Jovito Salonga in the 1945 Bar Exams, would have graduated from the University of Santo Tomas had not World War II supervened. Mr. Diokno's success in the bar exams is further underscored by the fact that he was also under-ageManila Times, April 12, 2008 and that he also placed number 1 in the 1940 CPA Board exams which he took while in law school, summa cum laude after graduating from then De La Salle College at the age of 17. This double number 1 feat may never be paralleled. The closest may have been Cesar L. Villanueva (from the Ateneo Law School) who placed second in the 1981 Bar Exams and sixth place in the 1982 CPA Board Exams and Reginald Laco (from the De La Salle Lipa Law School) who placed fourth in the 2015 Bar Exams and second in the 2009 CPA Board Exams. Carolina C. Griño-Aquino – former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court; 1st placer, 1950 bar exams. Ms. Aquino (who later became the wife of Mr. Ramon Aquino, 6th placer in 1939 Bar Exams) was a special student of the UP College of Law, where she finished her last two years of law school having taken her first two years of law school at the Colegio de San Agustin in Iloilo. Ms. Aquino was advised to take her last two years of law school in UP by Colegio de San Agustin Law Dean Felipe Ysmael. Coincidentally, Mr. Ysmael (a UP Law graduate himself) placed number 1 in the 1917 Bar Exams. Since Ms. Aquino only took her last two years of law at UP, she can't be certified as an official UP law graduate. Both spouses Aquino (in addition to being topnotchers) also served as Justices of the Supreme Court.
In the past, non-law school graduates were allowed to take the bar. However, the Revised Rules of Court and Supreme Court Circulars allow Filipino graduates of Philippine law schools (and subject to certain conditions, Filipino graduates of foreign law schools) to take the bar, necessarily excluding non-law graduates and foreigners who have law degrees from taking part in the exercise.Section 5, Rule 138, Revised Rules of Court.
While not a guarantee for topping the bar, academic excellence in law school is a good indicator of an examinee's fortune in the bar exams. Ateneo Law School's only summa cum laude graduate, Claudio Teehankee, placed number one in the 1940 Bar Exams. It is worth noting that Teehankee's son, Manny Teehankee, followed in his footsteps by graduating at the top of his Ateneo Law School class (albeit, not as summa cum laude) and placing first in the 1983 bar exams. Claudio's nephew, Enrique (a cum laude graduate from the UP College of Law), also placed number one in the 1976 bar exams. Claudio eventually became Supreme Court Chief Justice, Manuel was formerly Department of Justice Undersecretary and Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland while Enrique is a successful private practitioner.
This father-son-nephew feat has yet to (and, perhaps, may never) be equalled in the annals of Philippine Bar. For siblings, the closest is when Manuel B. Zamora, Jr. placed third in the 1961 Bar Exams and younger brother Ronaldo placed first in the 1969 Bar Exams.
The UST Faculty of Civil Law's sole summa cum laude graduate, Roberto B. Concepcion, placed first in the 1924 Bar Exams. He later served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The San Beda College of Law's sole magna cum laude graduate, Florenz Regalado,Florenz Regalado ranked 1st in the 1954 Bar exams with a mark of 96.70%. The record is the highest average in the Philippine Bar Examinations, to date. Regalado later served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
The UP College of Law (which has yet to produce a summa cum laude graduate) had five of its seventeen magna cum laude graduates (the College of Law first conferred the honor to Rafael Dinglasan in 1925 and, to date, last conferred the same honor to Dionne Marie Sanchez in 2007) place number one in their respective bar exams: Rafael Dinglasan in 1925, Lorenzo Sumulong in 1929, Deogracias Eufemio in 1962, Roberto San Jose in 1966 and Ronaldo Zamora in 1969. Dinglasan became a Judge of the Court of First Instance of Manila; Sumulong became Senator of the Republic and a renowned statesman; Eufemio became a known corporate lawyer appearing in court; while San Jose established his successful private law firm Castillo, Laman, Tan, Pantaleon & San Jose. Zamora became Executive Secretary to then President Joseph Estrada and Minority Leader in the House of Representatives.
Bar Topnotchers list The Office of the Bar Confidant releases an official Bar Topnotchers list together with the list of names of all successful bar examinees. The Bar Topnotchers list contains the names of the candidates who garnered the highest general averages in the bar exam for that year. The highest ranking candidate in the list is known as the bar topnotcher. The list has always been the subject of much media attention and public speculation."Results of the Philippine Bar Exams." TV Patrol World, ABS-CBN, March 2006.
Making a place in the list is widely regarded as an important life achievement, an attractive professional qualification, and a necessary improvement in a lawyer's professional and social status.
Below is a listing of all 106 first-placers since the Supreme Court publicly released the list of topnotchers (from 1913 to 2019 and from 2022 onwards) and can be rearranged from highest to lowest in terms of rating obtained. Bar ratings are not exactly comparable from year-to-year as the difficulty of the exams varies through the years. Two bar examinations took place in 1946, first in August to cover the absence of the examination the previous year and in November for the present year. The same happened in 2022 to represent 2020-21 and 2022 later that year. There was a tie in first place in two occasions – in 1944 and in 1999.