New details are emerging from Charlotte Law School. They have pushed back the start of their semester from January 17th to January 23; some, but not all, students will apparently get federal student loans for the spring; and it looks very much like Charlotte Law may be headed for closure in the not too distant future as they are working on a teach-out plan that involves Infilaw sister school Florida Coastal.
Late this afternoon, Charlotte Law Dean Jay Conison and President Chidi Ogene sent the following e-mail to Charlotte Law Students:
Dear Charlotte School of Law Students:
We are writing to confirm that Charlotte School of Law plans to reopen for the spring semester on January 23, 2017, the start date we announced a few days ago.
We realize there has been much public discussion and speculation in the media and elsewhere as to the future of CSL. We want to affirm these plans and eliminate uncertainty on this subject.
We continue to be in discussions with the Department of Education, American Bar Association and North Carolina Board of Governors regarding these arrangements. These are multi-faceted discussions, which are taking more time than we anticipated, but the passage of time has not changed our decision to operate and offer classes for the spring semester.
While CSL is not presently participating in the federal student aid programs, as we have previously reported, many of our students will qualify for the final disbursement of their 2016-17 Federal Direct Loans to support their education in the upcoming semester. More specifically, under Department of Education regulations, students who were awarded Federal Direct Loans for the 2016-2017 academic year and received the first disbursement of those loans in the fall semester are entitled to the second disbursement of loan funds to support their enrollment this spring. We are confident that we will reach agreement that will result in the Department meeting this legal commitment.
We are working to provide financial aid, including access to student loans from institutional and other non-federal sources, for those students who are not now entitled to a federal loan disbursement.
We are also working with the ABA and the North Carolina Board of Governors to implement a teach-out plan with the assistance of another ABA-accredited law school with the goal of allowing all students who chose to do so to complete their legal education in Charlotte. We are discussing this subject with the Florida Coastal School of Law, in order to arrange for terms that will satisfy the requirements of the ABA and North Carolina Board.
We are sorry that we cannot provide you with more detailed information at this time but we do want to be clear regarding our plans to start classes on January 23rd. We look forward to talking with you in more detail about your options and individual situations in the very near future. And we will continue to update you via email when we have new information to share.
Other news to emerge from Charlotte in recent days:
The Charlotte Law Faculty apparently held a vote of no confidence in the school's leadership. According to a story in the Charlotte Observer, the overwhelming majority of the faculty, including former Associate Dean Camille Davidson, expressed no confidence in the school's leaders. This may have contributed to Dean Conison's decision to ask for Associate Dean Davidson's resignation.
Stay tuned for the latest developments. . .
The faculty has no confidence in the leadership of the law school.
Really. You can't make this stuff up. This has to be one of the saddest statements; one that provokes laugh out loud revulsion and marvel at one and the same time. It literally makes one want to vomit.
Posted by: anon | January 12, 2017 at 02:21 AM
Sounds like they actually don't have an agreement with the Department of Education for even some of the students to get federal loans. We are confident we will reach an agreement, etc.
Posted by: Anonymous | January 12, 2017 at 06:08 AM
The only compassionate solution here is ABA-facilitated euthanasia for Charlotte. If you close the school, then the students can take advantage of the closed-school federal loan discharge and avoid a life of indenture to the huge debt incurred to enroll in a failing school with no alumni network, job prospects, prestige, options. Let the poor kids take a Mulligan. Please let CLS close.
Posted by: Jojo | January 12, 2017 at 06:59 AM
Hoping and praying that this awful school closes and that the other Infilaw schools aren't far behind!
Posted by: Anon | January 12, 2017 at 08:33 AM
The Associate Dean being terminated is also the wife of a politician. She may be great, but i think there are also investigations going on about payoffs for the approval of the sale of the law school two or three years ago.
DOE needs to change its rules and make all law schools subject to the gainful employment rule, regardless of any affiliation with any university.
Posted by: NewYork1 | January 12, 2017 at 11:00 AM
Anon, while I agree with most of your sentiments here, I want to weigh in on just one nuance. Faculty are not the driving force at every law school. True, at many schools the faculty wields more power than at others, but at some schools (particularly for-profits), the faculty is absolutely powerless.
Moreover, at some of these schools faculty are agitating for more transparency and better practices but often fear doing so because their schools don't have "real" tenure. I know that tenure is under fire, but in this day and age an important purpose of it is to allow faculty to act as a counterbalance to administrations turning law schools into diploma mills and seeking only to maximize revenue.
Posted by: Anon Prof | January 12, 2017 at 11:35 AM
Anon Prof, anyone who has accepted a faculty position at a school like Charlotte, Cooley, Whittier and the like has done so knowing that the admissions standards will prevent most of their students from having a legal career successful enough to pay off the loans incurred or in a growing number of cases even being able to become a lawyer. The fact that the administrators are even more culpable should not allow us to have even the slightest sympathy for the faculties.
Posted by: PaulB | January 12, 2017 at 02:12 PM
PaulB,
Agreed. I've got no problem with that.
But, it wasn't until about 5-7 years ago that faculty at other schools became aware of the situations going on (employment misreporting; section stacking, etc.). Those folks should have taken action to stop the abuses (and many did). But, those who took the job knowingly or didn't do anything after finding out have, in my view, a different level of culpability.
Posted by: Anon Prof | January 12, 2017 at 02:52 PM
Hold on there, PaulB. It's unfair and even a bit immoral to tar the faculties and administrations with the same brush.
I taught at a lower-tier school for 2 years (having also taught at higher ranked schools) and had very little knowledge, coming in (and only learned some damning truths later), of the admissions and business practices of the school. All I wanted was to be the best teacher and scholar and mentor I could be (to that I plead guilty!), and my experience was that the overwhelming majority of my colleagues were dedicated and skillful educators, that there was a decent legal education to be had, and also that the better students at the school could have succeeded most anywhere.
A lot of the faculty I worked with came from good, but not necessarily top-ranked schools who had to begin their teaching careers at middle and lower ranked schools, and they have proven their mettle as teachers, role models, and scholars. I also know that the school turned out some damn good attorneys. Yes, the admissions bar has been too low at too many schools. Your scorn, however, for those teachers who did the very best they could with what they had to work with, is entirely unmerited.
Posted by: Anon Seen it From All SIdes | January 12, 2017 at 03:06 PM
Here it is: "[The] majority of my colleagues were dedicated and skillful educators ... Your scorn, however, for those teachers who did the very best they could with what they had to work with, is entirely unmerited" ...
So, we have the last defense of these scoundrels at the bottom feeders who feast on the suffering of the students duped into enrollment.
A con man, ALWAYS BLAMES THE MARK.
The fact is, these scoundrels are all over the place in their rationalizations. "WE are great teachers, but the students are too dumb, in the main, to pass the bar." "We have innovative practices to allow both opportunity and success for those rejected at other law schools that adheres to ABA standards." "The bar exam is an invalid measure of a person's ability to practice law." "Those who oppose us are racists". "We are the most brilliant, hard working, dedicated teachers in America - our excellence is unsurpassed and our work ethic is beyond reproach." "We are the ignorant graduates of lower ranked law schools unable to obtain work at better law schools, so, we couldn't discern the nature of the game being played with the lives of our students at the bottom feeders where we work."
It goes on and on and on. As said above, it is a fact, a simple fact, that the faculties at most law schools are exceptionally lazy. Walk the halls, do you find them working in their offices all week long, even 10-5? With lengthy periods of inactivity (most don't publish at all, or publish sub par dreck that no one reads) during long, ample and fully paid vacations between semesters, teaching only one or two courses per semester, these folks have so much time on their hands that many just don't even pretend to be working "full time" and readily acknowledge the absurdity of the pay received for so little work. To hear them whining about faculty meetings really does take the cake.
Fine. When the graduates do well, fine. But when your graduates, culled by severe attrition, fail to pass the bar in clearly unacceptable numbers, it is YOUR FAULT, whether you are in the administration or on the faculty. Don't make excuses; do better or shut down. And, yes, when, as a faculty, you are the primarily responsible actors in a law school complex that is so disrespected that no one wants to hire your graduates, it is YOUR FAULT.
If you are too oblivious to understand these simple facts, it is no wonder the students you teach are not educated properly. Don't blame them. Some bottom feeders actually do better than others on objective measures, and there is your proof. Just like the students, there must be attrition here. Carrying along these mills, which do so much harm to so many purely out of greedy self interest, cannot be permitted to continue.
Posted by: anon | January 12, 2017 at 03:39 PM
I cannot imagine anyone who is serious about a career in legal academia taking a job at one of those schools. A fellowship, VAP or even a contract faculty position at a different law school would be a much better course of action.
Posted by: Anon | January 12, 2017 at 04:41 PM
The plight of the faculties at the bottom feeders is just not the important issue here. They are, as stated above, mostly extremely lazy, and by their sloth, have contributed to the failure of the students duped by their superiors. Of course they claim to be the best teachers in America. Of course, they point to the few of their students who succeed.
The ABA has standards, but they are so loose, so riddled with loopholes and so seldom enforced that the ABA cannot be trusted as a neutral arbiter of law school accreditation. The DOE has, at long last, stepped in, and hopefully, will intensify its efforts to shutter the crass bottom feeders.
The long-ago discredited claims by the supposedly "tirelessly dedicated servants toiling away seventy hours per week, fifty weeks per year, on the faculties of lower ranked law schools" - who blame everyone else but themselves (oh, how they have suffered) must, at long last, be entirely ignored.
Posted by: anon | January 12, 2017 at 04:53 PM
We'll, at least Dean Conison can become a consultant to law schools that go through this in the future, as the pathbreaker he is....
Posted by: Leo | January 12, 2017 at 04:58 PM
"This may have contributed to Dean Conison's decision to ask for Associate Dean Davidson's resignation."
Wow, is the man beyond shame? You would think that a man who's managed to have two schools he's run -- Charlotte and Valparaiso -- sanctioned at the same time shouldn't really be demanding anybody else resign. Well, considering his current employer is going out of business, and the lawsuits are already started, I suspect the next few years are going to be very unpleasant for him.
Posted by: twbb | January 12, 2017 at 10:02 PM
My heart goes out to the faculties at the Infi law schools. Given these folks' credentials, they are unlikely to find other jobs in the academy. This has to be terrifying.
Posted by: Anon | January 13, 2017 at 08:59 AM
Cheap shot, Anon 3:39. We all agree that the admission of marginally and flat-out unqualified applicants in unconscionable numbers by too many schools (both for profit and not for profit, public and private, university-affiliated and stand-alone) is the core of the problem. These students are the victims here, no one's blaming them.
The problem has gotten worse, across the board, and "regulators" have been slow to respond, but we are finally (way too late) beginning to see some action. For example, the year I came to teach at a lower ranked school (after 15 years of teaching elsewhere) the school's bar pass rate was at the middle of its state's passage rate. It has since cratered. Are we waking up late to the problem? Absolutely. Did the teachers there suddenly get worse or become lazy? Hardly. The faculty at that school were predominantly young, dedicated, and hungry (in the good sense of the word). I don't think Professor Frakt, one of the great whistle blowers of all time, would blame them either.
Posted by: Anon Seen it From All SIdes | January 13, 2017 at 09:30 AM
Those who are being critical of faculty at less prestigious schools have obviously never worked at one of these schools. I taught at two of them and have friends on the faculty of several others. Like any organization, at the schools where I worked there were very a few hard-working faculty, plenty of reasonably hard-working faculty, and a few who did the bare minimum (easier to do when you have tenure). There were plenty of ambitious young professors who were still hoping to move up the law school ladder who worked extremely hard at their teaching and scholarship, and the majority of the faculty were competent and conscientious professionals. It is has been so competitive to get a teaching job at any law school that even many bottom-tier schools have faculty with outstanding credentials. In my experience, people who have striven for excellence their entire lives, don't suddenly become "exceptionally lazy" when they become law professors. There are many outstanding and highly productive scholars and exceptional teachers at less prestigious law schools. It should also be noted that the fortunes of schools rise and fall, so a school might have been respectable when a faculty member joined, and then became less respectable over time for one reason or another. Several once respectable schools have lowered admission standards to try to stay open during the enrollment crisis of the past 6 years and have become "bottom feeders". As to how much blame for the lowering of admission standards should be attributed to the faculty, I would say some, but not much. Only a few faculty members who serve on the admissions committee ever see the applications, and their recommendations may be overridden by the administration. The basic admissions standards are also likely to be set by the administration. I certainly think faculty members could have done more to protest the lowering of standards at some schools, but as maintaining standards would likely have led to much smaller entering classes, necessitating significant cuts in the faculty, it is perhaps understandable that they haven't. I think when tough decisions like this need to be made, the leadership of the school must step up and make the tough calls.
Posted by: David Frakt | January 13, 2017 at 11:22 AM
Truth (as always), David Frakt, thank you!!
Posted by: Anon Seen it From All SIdes | January 13, 2017 at 11:35 AM
Thanks for that David. I am a former Charlotte faculty member. I worked as hard as I knew how to be a great teacher, a productive scholar, and an engaged colleague. We regularly pushed back - hard - against institutional shadiness. Sadly, we were not informed of much of the shenanigans. Many of us left the school over it. For those brave anonymous comments on this thread, you are entitled to your opinion. But instead of throwing shade on good hearted, hard working people, why don't you regale us all with the personal sacrifices YOU have made to right wrongs in the world.
Posted by: BC | January 13, 2017 at 01:22 PM
Ok, for those who cling to the fiction that law professors are hard working.
First, we are speaking of individuals who work, generally, 28 weeks per year (two semesters of 14 weeks). This is part time work. The breaks between semesters, the summers, are all paid leave, and most faculty play during these breaks.
Second, during the semesters these overburdened folks are forced to toil away at their demanding jobs, most are teaching two three unit courses, or six hours per week (or less!). Some hold office hours, but mainly, faculty offices are empty. The courses taught are often taught over and over, with little improvement or additional work in preparation.
At the bottom feeders, many if not most of the faculty write nothing at all, and, what they do produce is often substandard and the product of lazy research and scant effort.
Some faculty attend faculty meetings. They whine about this and, as anyone who has served on one knows, like all committees, these are basically easy and a waste of time for all concerned.
Ok. As said above, these folks can go on and on about how great they are, about how much they sacrifice, about how "young" and "hungry" they are (wow, there's a revelatory comment, worthy of further disgust). But, when they incessantly brag about how much effort they are putting in, while the the law schools where they teach are failing institutions and an embarrassment to the profession of law, their boasting and self congratulations takes on a haunting, sort of nauseating character.
Law professors love to say, in the face of their own failure, "What could we have done about it?" They are expert at deflecting blame and pointing at others. But the fact remains that they loaf and fritter away their time when there are actions that could be taken to mitigate the failures of the administration. They are just too self righteous, too enamored with their own "credentials" (not impressed, Mr. Harvard JD, really not as big a deal as you seem to think) to roll up their sleeves and take some responsibility.
And, here's where it gets really deep. These folks claim to be interested in "social justice" and "public interest" while they participate in the fleecing of gullible young people to support their lavishly overpaid and privileged cocoons. They are exploiting the weak to enrich themselves in a way that would make any capitalist puff with pride (just as they do) while going around claiming to be on the side of the taken. What a load!
David, you seem to be still seeking employment by one of these schools, and so, understandably, you may be loathe to point out that the faculties have a big role in the failure of some law schools. But, think about it. Is it credible to claim, as you continue to do, that faculties have nearly NO role in the failure of some law schools?
The Truth demands recognition that some bottom feeders do better than others. Let the better performing faculties have their overprivilege; as stated above, one doesn't object so long as the students are not paying a life-changing fee for worthless degrees to support law faculties that propound the nonsense that they are "hard working."
And please, read the excuses law faculties propound (some mentioned above) and think about it. Boasting and bragging about how great you are really is disgusting when by all objective measures you have failed miserably. Of course, there are exceptions at every law school, both among the students and the faculty.
Exceptions. That is the key.
Posted by: anon | January 13, 2017 at 01:46 PM