How Low Can You Go, InfiLaw?

When I visited Florida Coastal last spring for my Dean interview, my prescription to turn the school around was drastic.  I told them they should immediately rescind offers of admission and refund deposits and application fees for all students with an LSAT of 144 and below, and refuse to admit any more students at 144 and below.  As readers of this blog well know, the response of the school’s president was to eject me from the campus.    

With the release of the 2014 Standard 509 Information reports, it is now clear that my hope that InfiLaw might be willing to consider reversing their dramatic and utterly irresponsible downward admissions trajectory was a fantasy, because just when you thought they couldn’t possibly sink any lower, they have.  As I have noted in previous posts, FCSL had gone from an acceptable 153/150/147 in 2008 and 2009 all the way to an appallingly low 148/144/141 in 2013.  This year, they have dropped across the board and are now down to an abysmal 147/143/140 for the 424 students who matriculated in 2014.  In five years, what used to be their 25th percentile (147) is now their 75th percentile.  And for those who think a 7 point drop (from 147 to 140) doesn’t sound all that significant, trust me, it is.  A 147 is in the 33^rd percentile, whereas a 140 is in the 13^th percentile, a 20 percentile drop.   And just in case you might be thinking that FCSL is taking people with low LSAT’s but high grades, they aren’t.  The GPAs are also very low, with a median of 2.93.   For reference, in 2006, the average college GPA was 3.11 and that number has likely continued to rise.   

If FCSL had heeded my advice, well over half of the students who enrolled this fall would not have been admitted.  The school's profits would be down, and undoubtedly they would have had to lay off many staff and faculty, but at least they would have been on a path to sustainability, and maybe even respectability.  Instead, they have done everything in their power to make themselves a national laughingstock.  

The only good news for FCSL is that their numbers aren’t quite as atrocious as their sister school, Charlotte School of Law.   Charlotte matriculated even more students than Florida Coastal in 2014, 446 of them, with even lower entrance credentials.  At 146/142/138  with a median GPA of 2.83, Charlotte has now officially admitted the least capable law school class of any significant size at an ABA-accredited school in U.S. history.  Charlotte's numbers dropped even more dramatically across the board from 2013 when they were 149/144/141.  Their part-time division, which at 127 students is larger than their cellar-dweller rival Ave Maria’s entering class, is shockingly weak, with a group profile of 142/138/136. That means they have 35 students in the evening division who come from the bottom 7% of LSAT takers.   This is absolutely unconscionable.

The third law school in InfiLaw’s stable, Arizona Summit, had slightly higher, but still atrocious numbers, matriculating at least 131 students with an LSAT of 144 or below in 2014.

As I and others have noted, many law schools have lowered their standards and there are several with historically weak classes this year, with numbers that would have been unthinkable just 3 or 4 years ago.  Ave Maria, Western Michigan Thomas Cooley,  Thomas Jefferson,  Faulkner, Southern, Texas Southern,  Western New England, and Barry (full disclosure - I was on the Barry faculty from 2010-2, but never had anything to do with admissions) all have entering classes where their 75% percentile is below 150.  But among these, only InfiLaw is making huge profits off of totally unqualified students, and that puts InfiLaw in a class (low) by itself.

If InfiLaw's management believes that they are meeting ABA Standard 501(b) (—“A law school shall not admit applicants who do not appear capable of satisfactorily completing its educational program and being admitted to the bar”) by admitting scores of students from the bottom 10% of LSAT takers, they are not only deceiving the students, they are deluding themselves.   What seems far more likely is that they know quite well that these students have little chance of graduating (unless they also significantly lower their performance standards) and passing the bar.  

InfiLaw should be promptly and thoroughly investigated not only by the ABA and Department of Education but by the Higher Education Commissions in the states where they operate and the  Consumer Protection Divisions of the Florida, North Carolina and Arizona State Attorney Generals' Offices, and/or DoJ.  They must not be permitted to continue to operate in this disgraceful manner.

Comments

[anon]

Jojo

Yes, yes, and yes.

What is so discouraging is that rules already exist that would likely cut off the spigot of federal loans to students with little chance to succeed in passing the bar and obtaining JD required employment; but, the rules aren't enforced for political reasons.

It is the hypocrisy of the privileged elite that operate law schools (and benefit from employment in them) that has created this environment. This should rankle even the most tolerant of observers.

Faculty whine, "But, what can WE do?" The world has seldom seen such "brilliance." Those at fault bemoan the fact that they can't understand how they caused the problem. and then expect others to accept their complaint as an excuse, and not as proof of something very, very troubling.

[Mark P. Yablon]

You recommend turning down applicants solely on the basis of their LSAT scores. You support an absolute minimum LSAT cut-off of 145 to be admitted to a low ranked law school. What would be your cut-off at high ranked schools?

You realize LSAC historically has warned law schools not to follow your suggestions because they are statistically invalid, or at least inconclusive. According to LSAC, the LSAT was designed to predict the likelihood of doing well as a 1L--but not whether one will graduate and pass the bar. Based on LSAC data, applicants over age 39 have a median score of 144. So you unknowingly (or possibly knowingly) support turning down most applicants over age 39. You probably are aware non-traditional students typically do better academically than traditional students who have a median LSAT score 11 points higher than their older cohorts.

[David Frakt]

Mark P. Yablon -

If you review my comments above, I am not suggesting an absolute minimum cut-off of 145 (although it certainly wouldn't be unreasonable for a school to impose such a policy). A couple of comments ago, I said "I also have no problem with law schools admitting a small number of 146 and 145s, maybe even 144s and 143s, if they have a strong undergraduate record or some other history of personal success, through an admission by performance type of program." I was not aware that older candidates had a lower median LSAT, but a non-traditional candidate with a 144 who had a strong work history in a job requiring some use of logical reasoning skills would, in my view, be a good candidate for an admission by performance program. Since the non-traditional candidate would likely have been out of school for a long time, an admission by performance program would be a good opportunity to assess their current aptitude for law school. 143 is at the 20th percentile on the LSAT. It would be hard for me to envision accepting any student at 142 (18th percentile) or below. A student scoring at that level could either retake the LSAT and try to get a higher score, or go to an unaccredited law school. My prescription for FCSL to not admit students at 144 or below might have allowed an exception for a select group of 142-143 students with strong grades who completed a rigorous admission by performance program. The goal was to reverse the current policy which is to admit virtually anyone at 140 or above and quite a few students even below that, which, in my view, is a recipe for disaster with respect to bar results, destroys the schools reputation, and is unfairly taking advantage of students without proven aptitude for the study of law.

As for higher ranked schools, they should just try to get the best students they can get, since a school's reputation is largely based on selectivity in admissions. My only real area for concern with higher-ranking schools is how low they are willing to go in pursuit of diversity. While I firmly support affirmative action programs, and therefore would make some allowance for lower LSAT scores for underrepresented minority students, I think it is important not to admit students who are so far below the class median that they will have difficulty keeping up with their peers. I believe that affirmative action concerns are what is driving ABA policy with regard to not having any specific cut off scores, since African-American and Hispanic students have a lower median LSAT score as a group. But since there is no evidence that these minority groups outperform their scores, I would not adjust my recommended minimum cut-offs.

[BoredJD]

John Kunich: Nobody would begrudge Infilaw their place in the sun if they wanted to open up an unaccredited law school in California. Of course, such a school would not be profitable, for the simple fact that nobody in their right mind would pay the kind of tuition necessary to maintain the people who run the school in the lifestyles to which they are accustomed. But you're not seriously suggesting that the federal government should provide access to federal student loans to literally anybody who wants to open a law school on the off chance that a single one of those students might someday pass the bar? You're not in favor of getting rid of the bar exam on the off chance that someone who fails the bar exam might still be a lawyer?

[confused by your post]

Almost any effective methods or requirements that might be put in place to reduce the number of unqualified students who enroll in law schools will run up against arguments that such methods/requirements disproportionately affect people of color.

This is a problem that I have not heard a solution for.