Half Of Concordia Law 3L's Take Semester Off Pending ABA Accreditation Decision

As I've previously noted, the ABA has deferred a final call on Concordia Law's provisional accreditation pending a report from a new factfinder.  Since the Idaho Supreme Court declined to give Concordia grads special permission to sit for the bar, irrespective of the ABA's decision, current 3L's are at risk of graduating from a school that has never been accredited.  Most states allow students to sit for the bar only if they have graduated from a law school that was ABA accredited at some point during the time the student was enrolled.  Given that the ABA might not reach a decision this school year, current 3L's are at risk of graduating from a school that was never accredited at any point in their tenure.

Thus the news story: half of all of Concordia Law's 3L's are taking time off this term, hoping that accreditation comes through while they are still students. 

H/T Paul Caron

Comments

[confused by your post]

Concordia could have avoided this simply by offering to refund tuition and fees to 3L's if one of the following does not occur in time for them to take the ID bar exam in the summer of 2015:

1. the school does not receive provisional ABA accreditation;
2. the school's students are not otherwise allowed to take the ID bar exam.

I'm confused. Why would the school not do this?

[anon123]

In addition, 55 Concordia students are transferring to the University of Idaho. Apparently some of the transfers are third year students, who will have to in effect repeat a year.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/08/21/3335227_nearly-half-of-concordia-laws.html?&rh=1

[Jimbo the first mate]

Ahoy, Matey. The Costa Concordia School of Law has struck a rock and is listing badly. Time to abandon ship!

[Jojo]

Refunds?!!???

Law school is not about the bar exam. It's about a versatile education that opens lots of doors and teaches students to think like lawyers. It's education for education's sake, just like undergraduate studies of the arts and humanities and pure sciences. There will be no refunds.

[anon]

Actually, a legal education in a law school is secondary to the "knowledge creation" by its faculty, which has nothing to do with training attorneys or even teaching law.

The school should go on, without students, so that this ever so important activity can continue, and the government should forego the pretense of using students as conduits, and simply give the money to the school directly.

[anon123]

Apparently 55 students, including some 3Ls, have transferred to University of Idaho. Hard to imagine a 3L transferring, and losing a year.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/08/21/3335227/nearly-half-of-concordia-laws.html?

[Anon123]

In addition, 55 students are transferring to U. of Idaho (including some rising 3Ls who will lose credits -- hard to beleive)

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/08/21/3335227/nearly-half-of-concordia-laws.html?

[terry malloy]

Students are a nuisance. All those pesky classes and stupid questions get in the way of my quarterly release of Proust, the Hapsburg Monarchy, and the law journal article.

[BarPrepU]

All kidding aside, I do think law school is about MORE than just training lawyers and getting students to pass the bar exam. But that response doesn't fit in the context of Concordia. Picking up on the theme of threads about Western State and the "Three Year Bar Prep Course," Concordia is filled with faculty/administrators whose claim to fame is that law school is primarily about passing the bar exam (or, at least, substantially about it), including cast-offs from Western State and other for-profit law schools. When I attended the SEALS conference earlier this summer, I noticed one of them, Dean Sergienko, was on the schedule to give a presentation on how to teach classes in a way to get students to pass the bar exam. This was just after the announcement about the Idaho S.Ct. denying waivers. I found myself asking: "Preparing students for the bar exam, what bar exam?"

[Roger Roger Roger]

If Idaho is smart, they should take all of Concordia's students and put Concordia out of business.

[anon]

Roger

This is a great suggestion.

In all seriousness, perhaps this is the answer to the crisis in devolving standards (which, will ultimately result not only in three year bar prep law schools, but dilution of the bar exam standards to accommodate them).

More credible law schools could, by admitting as transfers large swaths of the unqualified students admitted at the lowest ranked schools, put these schools out of business. To some extent, this is already occurring (at the high end of the first year class). Driving those attrition rates even higher, to unacceptable levels, would work fairly quickly, perhaps.

To cope, to be sure, more credible law schools would need to implement bar review courses for credit (that the ABA now permits to accommodate those schools for which there is no need other than to employ the schools administrators and faculty). Perhaps these more credible law schools might need to study and learn from Western State about how to coach unqualified students to pass the bar!

Again, in all seriousness, the problem would go away in a few years and the more credible law schools could then resume enforcing standards for admission to law school - a notion that amazingly is now questioned in some quarters by those who believe that standards for admission to law school are wrongful.

[anon123]

I think that 55 students have transferred to the U of Idaho, including some rising 3Ls (meaning that they will lose a year).