The 2017 Bottom 10 Law Schools in the Country

As I have noted in a recent column, 10 schools have been found out of compliance with ABA Standard 501 on Admissions,  which requires that school admit only students who appear capable of earning a J.D. and passing the bar. Although several of these schools have been found out of compliance just in the last few months, there was ample evidence during this year’s admissions season of what the ABA was willing to tolerate and what the ABA considered out of bounds.  So the big question this year was whether the ABA’s increasingly aggressive campaign to stop predatory admission practices would result in more schools raising their admission standards to acceptable levels.

Well, the new ABA Standard 509 Reports are out, and the results are not encouraging. Several schools have clearly not learned from the experience of their peer schools and have admitted classes that are very likely to incur ABA scrutiny.  It seems that some schools are so desperate to stay open that they are willfully violating Standard 501 even though they must know that sanctions are likely – call it the Charlotte School of Law strategy.   

In addition to the ABA 509 single school reports, the ABA helpfully compiles data on all the schools into sortable Excel spreadsheets, making school by school comparisons relatively simple.  Drawing from the “First Year Class” spreadsheet, I have compiled a list of the bottom 10 least selective law schools in the U.S. (excluding Puerto Rico) by LSAT score (in some cases I have also considered UGPAs as a tiebreaker) for the 2017-18 school year.

The Bottom 10

1. Thomas Cooley Western Michigan U - 146/142/139. Cooley has already been found out of compliance with Standard 501 by the ABA. They recently lost in their efforts to get a restraining order against the ABA to keep this secret from prospective students and did little to improve their chances of having that decision reversed with this year’s embarrassing incoming class, with similar credentials to last year’s (147/141/138).   But the school is still making a fortune with an entering class of 458, third largest in the country (after Georgetown and Harvard). Cooley accepted 85.6% of applicants, far and away the highest acceptance rate in the country.  (Vermont, with 159 entering 1Ls, was second, with a 78.8% acceptance rate.)

2. Texas Southern – 146/143/141. Already sanctioned by the ABA for standards violations and under remedial measures, Texas Southern nevertheless enrolled a large class of 256 students, a significant increase from last year’s 227.  Unfortunately, these students are virtually all at high risk of failure.  The school grew its class by lowering its already dismal admission standards across the board.  Last year they were at 147/145/142.  What are they thinking? The school should be placed on probation.

3. (Tie) Appalachian – 149/143/141 Found out of compliance by the ABA last January and formally notified in May, they hid this fact from prospective students and managed to nearly double their class from 38 to 73 entering students, while very modestly increasing their numbers from 147/143/140. The bottom half of the class are all at extremely high risk of failure.  Their bottom 25% UGPA is an especially woeful 2.51, the lowest of any law school in the country.  Appalachian also boosted enrollment in its upper divisions by taking 16 transfers from Charlotte School of Law, which is not likely to boost their abysmal bar passage rate. Expect Appalachian to be sanctioned.

3. (Tie) Southern – 146/144/141. Number one on my list of schools that deserve to be sanctioned but haven’t yet. Southern has enrolled 200 students, virtually all of whom at are very high or extremely high risk of failure. They increased their class size to 200 from 171, so they could have raised standards, but basically held steady at atrocious. (Last year: 146/143/141) Where are you, ABA?

5. (Tie) Charleston – 148/145/142 Charleston enrolled a large class of 251 students, up from 215, by admitting 71% of applicants.  They could have been more selective and raised their standards considerably.  Last year: 149/145/141. So, for the last three years, at least 75% of Charleston’s class has been made up of high risk students.  The ABA must put a stop to this exploitation.

5.  (Tie)  Thomas Jefferson –  147/144/142.  In January, TJ was found out of compliance by the ABA on Standard 501.   TJ dishonestly kept this secret from its prospective students, enabling the school to grow its enrollment.  But this school is digging itself is an ever deeper hole by admitting a pathetically weak class in a state where students with LSATs below 146 have extremely poor prospects of passing the bar, and everybody below 150 struggles.   Last year TJ had 232 students with a profile of 147/143/141, and the second highest non-transfer attrition rate in the country at 37.2%.  Despite knowing they were facing sanctions due in part to its lax admission policies, TJ chose to increase its class size and essentially maintain its abysmal admissions standards.  The one point increase at the 50^th and 25^th percentiles was offset by lower UGPAs across the board.  Not surprisingly, TJ was recently placed on probation by the ABA.  Expect droves of transfers from TJ this winter and next summer, and continued bar passage woes for the foreseeable future, assuming TJ can stay in business.   

7. N.C. Central – 149/145/142. Now that Charlotte has closed, NC Central takes over the mantle of least selective law school in North Carolina.  To their credit, they did raise their LSAT standards a bit by shrinking the class from 183 to 166.  Last year they were at 149/144/141.  But this one point increase at the 50^th and 25^th was offset by lower UGPAs across the board.  More troublingly, NC Central had the highest level of 1L non-transfer attrition of any law school in the country last year, at 37.7% nearly twice the rate that the ABA has stated will result in presumptive non-compliance with Standard 501.  The ABA needs to take a hard look at NC Central.

8. (tie) Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School – 149/146/144.  This school was recently notified that they are out of compliance with Standard 501 by the ABA, and now I am starting to understand why.  They’ve slipped from 2016 when they were at 149/148/145, and they had a 21.9% non-transfer attrition rate, 12^th worst in the country, and above the ABA’s presumptive exploitation rate of 20%.   Last year they had 195 entering students.  This year 216.  This was not the year for the school to grow the class by lowering their standards.

8. (tie) Florida A&M University – 149/146/144. FAMU is up a smidge from 148/145/144 last year, but not enough to reverse their sliding bar passage rate. With 222 students, up from 151, they could have maintained their class size or even grew modestly and raised standards considerably, instead of growing by 50%, remaining in the bottom 10 nationally. FAMU is practically begging for ABA scrutiny.

10. Concordia – 151/147/144. Although there are four other schools with a bottom 25% at 144 and 50% at 147,  and two of these have lower LSATs at the 75% by one point, the UGPAs at Concordia are by far the lowest of these five schools (3.24/2.90/2.59) so they narrowly edge the competition for the coveted tenth slot in the bottom 10.  Although Concordia had great bar results last summer, they have placed their future in jeopardy by lowering their standards for the fourth year in a row.  Their entering class of 2014 was at 157/152/149.  2015: 154/150/146.  2016: 151/149/145.  This year: 151/147/144.  And other than Valparaiso, which recently announced it was suspending admissions,  Concordia had the smallest entering class of any law school in the country, at just 48 students.  Not good signs.

Dishonorable Mention:

There are 6 schools with 25% LSATs at 144 – which I categorize as Extremely High Risk.  Two (FAMU and Concordia) made the bottom 10. These schools have presumably calculated that they are safe from ABA scrutiny based on prior ABA adverse actions.  In light of the recent finding of non-compliance against Atlanta’s John Marshall, these schools may find that they have miscalculated.  Even if they get a pass from the ABA, these schools should be ashamed that they have stooped so low as to be admitting over a quarter of students from the bottom 23% of LSAT takers.

 The other four at 144:

• South Dakota – this state flagship university has truly fallen on hard times. They are down to 57 1Ls (5th smallest in the country) with an LSAT profile of 150/147/144 (down from 152/148/144 in 2016) and plummeting bar pass rates. The school needs to move from tiny Vermillion to Sioux Falls to survive, but this proposal has been nixed.
• Southern Illinois – Another state school with very weak students, identical to South Dakota at 150/147/144, but with much worse UGPAs. Down from 150/148/145 last year.
• Roger Williams - 151/147/144 down from 153/148/145.
• Oklahoma City – 152/147/144. Last year 151/147/144.

The Next Tier:

There are 20 law schools with a bottom 25% LSAT at 145 (26^th percentile).  There is probably safety in numbers here, as the ABA is unlikely to take action against so many schools with similar numbers.   This group includes one school that was previously forced to take remedial measures for violating admission standards (Ave Maria), one school that is currently on probation (Arizona Summit), and another school that has recently received notice of non-compliance with Standard 501  (Florida Coastal).  Florida Coastal has argued that they should not be considered in non-compliance because they have raised their bottom 25% to 145.  But the 509 report reveals that they did so by taking a lot of students with dreadful undergraduate records.  The UPGA profile at Florida Coastal for 2017 is 3.10/2.83/2.59 – worse even than Western Michigan Thomas Cooley! (The average undergraduate GPA in the U.S. is about 3.15.)  Only three law schools in the country have comparably awful UPGA profiles:  Appalachian, Thomas Jefferson and InfiLaw sister school Arizona Summit (3.15/2.81/2.53).  For comparison purposes, Ave Maria’s UGPA numbers are 3.52/3.16/2.83, about average in this cohort of 20 schools.  Ave Maria seems to have weathered the storm under the leadership of Dean and President Kevin Cieply and is on the rebound, with 97 1Ls, up from 88 last year, and a two-point improvement at their LSAT 25%.  Meanwhile, it is not clear if Arizona Summit can survive, with just 49 matriculants, down from 143 last year (and 450 in 2011!).  In 6 years, Arizona Summit went from tied with NYU for the 12^th largest entering class in the country to the fourth smallest entering class.   With the fifth highest non-transfer attrition rate in the country last year at 27.2%, they are likely to continue to get smaller.  That is one way to go from for-profit to non-profit.   

Some Other Observations

There is a new format for the ABA 509 Reports, and overall there is more useful data, particularly regarding attrition. One area of concern with the new report format is that schools with part-time programs are no longer required to report the admissions credentials of their part time classes separately.  As I noted in a recent column, many schools were admitting substantially weaker students into their part-time divisions, leading to concerns about exploitation of this cohort. Now, there is no way to know if law schools are doing so.  The ABA should require that this data be reported in future years. 

Bar passage data, like employment data, will now be reported separately. Bar passage data should be out in March, employment data in April.

Comments

[Matt]

I sigh a bit about Concordia - not because I have any sympathy for the school itself - it clearly shouldn't be there, but because the law school in Idaho should be in Boise, and so at Boise State University (for reasons not that far from those mentioned about South Dakota later in the post, though the situation isn't a dire.) The majority of law jobs, both in private industry and government, in Idaho are in Boise. In a sane world, the law school would be at Boise State. The University of Idaho had tried to address this by having satellite program in Boise, but this is just a waste of resources. This situation will likely never change, not only because (for obvious reasons) U of I doesn't want to give up its law school, but also because of the bad reasoning by the state legislature, which has an unreasonable bias against Boise and BSU. It's bad for law students in Idaho (which really only needs one law school, not 2.5 as it has now) and for the state in general.

[Deep State Special Legal Counsel]

If at the end of the day, one student from anyone of these schools passes the Bar, they are a success. It's called opportunity, not a guarantee. I know guys from top tier schools who are current attorneys struggling in the practice of law, economically. The Law as a profession has not rebounded since the Great Recession. Frankly, it has not recovered since the Bush I Recession. I recall during 1990-91, lawyers were laid off and placement rates were terrible. Law schools need to honestly disclose that the practice of law is no longer a realistic opportunity for a middle class lifestyle.

[Anon]

Note that some of these schools appear to be serving as "farm teams" for nearby higher ranked schools who play the transfer game to appear more selective in their first year admissions. Arizona State is chief among them, taking inordinate amounts of transfers from AZ Summit. One wonders how AZ State would survive if AZ summit goes down. One also wonders if there is any back door deal between AZ State and AZ Summit.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is some shady kick back agreement between these schools regarding transfers. When it comes to law schools, nothing surprises me any more. They would make Enron's board members blush.

[anon]

This is sort of a misleading exercise.

A one point increase in the "bottom 25% LSAT" can't possibly tell you if a law school is no longer "one of the worst." GPA scores are even more unreliable in this respect.

We need to know attrition, bar pass and employment stats.

If a school is NOT included above, but flunks out a third of its first year class, only 25% of those remaining pass the bar, and only 20% of those who pass the bar obtain FT/LT/JD required employment, will it matter if the incoming class was at 146 or 145 at the 25%?

Sorry, but this list is premature and, IMHO, not very useful or meaningful in any respect.

ONe possible use for this list: It would be interesting to compare and correlate actual performance with these input stats, to determine law schools that consistently over perform and those that consistently under perform.

Then, perhaps we can begin a discussion that is long overdue: faculty effectiveness.

[Deep State Special Legal Counsel]

Anon^^^

The faculty can be all "Professor Kingsfields" and Harvard trained and it won't make a difference. Almost 2,000 new attorneys were admitted to the Bar in November. Where are there even 200 jobs?

I am exhausted chasing "three bill retail thefts" and driving thousands of miles each year to courthouses to represent those clients. I used to get $1200 for a misdemeanor or DUI. The market is grotesquely oversaturated with lawyers. It's a cage fight for even the smallest of fees. Nobody wants to sit in the office and stare at the ceiling.

[anymouse]

Matt - they now have all 3 years in the University of Idaho College of Law Boise campus. It where the action is and it will effectively happen in the Boise campus rather than the Moscow campus.

[Jim]

From a Floridian's perspective, I weep not for Florida Coastal, whose problems have been amply documented elsewhere, nor for Ave Maria aka the Domino's Pizza Ultra-Conservative Catholic School of Law, which frankly shouldn't even exist. But FAMU is not only a public law school-- worthy on that score alone--but also one set up to serve "historically underrepresented communities," as its founding legislation puts it. Whatever is dragging it down, even if it is only class size, I hope its administration addresses the matter because (leaving aside perhaps FIU in Miami) it's the only relatively new law school the state actually needed.

[anon]

Looking at one school in particular, one might find that the gross attrition rate (30%?) is disproportionately among "minority" students.

IN other words, take their money for the first year and flunk them out, all the while promising "opportunity" as a come on.

If that is not disgusting beyond belief, add to that the pompous, self-congratulatory puffing and prideful boasting about promoting social justice, among unbelievably rapacious, self interested and often exceedingly and exceptionally lazy professors, who are themselves disproportionately the privileged, pampered white children of the upper middle class.

Until and unless someone addresses faculty effectiveness, enforcement of output metrics (attrition, bar pass, and employment) will have to do. But SOMEBODY has to put a stop to the "opportunity" argument, because it is bogus from tip to tail.

[Meehoff Jack]

Disappointed that I wasted five minutes of leisure reading time on yet another pointless “artulcle” by ATL. Thanks for letting the world know what’s already obvious.

[Meehoff Jack]

Oops, I meant “article”. Kid can’t even read over here.

[Bill]

There are definitely too many lawyers and with the Internet & Robotic researchers the demand will go down. We, unlike the English System, have way too many frivolous law cases jamming our court system.

[anon]

LSAT/GPA really mean nothing to the individual who is willing to put in the work to do marginally well in law school and pass the bar. The best lawyer in my area (criminal defense) got a 2.0 in college and 2.0 in law school.

[Gary Minor]

I don't believe that a lsac score decides who the best attorneys are. I don't have a law degree and have faced off with 5 star super lawyers in the cout room and haven't lost yet. I am a paralegal who typing speed is less than 30 wpm and have a 2.9 gpa. These so called super lawyers are the losing in the court rooms to people like me who respect the profession. We have drive and determination not high lsac scores and gpa's.

[David Frakt]

Anon says: "LSAT/GPA really mean nothing to the individual who is willing to put in the work to do marginally well in law school and pass the bar." There are always a few individuals with low LSAT scores or low grades who manage to pass the bar. But there are far more that fail. First year law school GPA is an even better predictor of bar passage than LSAT scores. Someone with a 2.0, barely in good academic standing would have a very high likelihood of failure. I do not mean to suggest that someone with a low LSAT score who actually graduates and passes the bar will not be a good lawyer. The point of this article is that law schools are admitting students with no apparent aptitude for the study of law and then misleading them about their chances for completing law school and passing the bar. At some schools, students in the bottom quartile have worse than a 1 in 5 chance of graduating on time and passing the bar the first time. A few more may pass on subsequent tries, but still far more will fail than succeed.

[Deep State Special Legal Counsel]

Bill at 10:05 pm:

"Frivolous Lawsuit" is a term coined by State Farm because they refuse to pay out claims. It is a term that corporate America came up with to deny ordinary citizens their right of access to civil courts and damages. If it weren't for lawyers, we would all still be driving Ford Pintos.

[Joe S]

Professor Frakt, Both Dakota law schools face a problem in that they have reciprocity with the University of Minnesota Law School (and maybe Iowa and Wisconsin as well). The best prospects from the Dakotas almost all go to Minnesota. A move really isn't going to help SDSU. SIU is in the same bind with U of I and Washington University nearby. SIU has another problem in that Southern Illinois is economically stagnant and losing population (with the exception of "Metro East" which is connected to the St. Louis legal market). SIU used to serve Southern Illinois, but, for the most part, Southern Illinois' legal market is drying up with the population for the area.

[Matt]

Thanks for the information about U. of Idaho, Anymouse above. That's probably better than before, though less ideal than just having the law school be part of BSU, I'd think. (In theory, I like the idea of a smaller law school at U. of Idaho, in the North, and a slightly larger one at BSU in the South, but it won't happen and might not be viable anyway.)

[anon]

The conversation is drifting into how individuals would design the law school market: "I would put one here, oh, no, I would put one there ..."

IMHO, the opinions of others about where law schools should be located are sort of irrelevant. If a law school is producing graduates who pass the bar in acceptable numbers who, again in acceptable numbers, find employment in FT/LT/JD required positions thereafter, then that law school is performing. Period.

If a law school isn't meeting these tests, then federal support for loans to law students who are being misled and duped (and this is by non profits as well) should be immediately withdrawn.

[familyman]

anon, you hit the nail on the head! LSAT scores and UGPA's are simply metrics intended to HELP determine how successful one will be in law school and in a legal profession. They are not intended to be the absolute determination. But there are several other factors that can be reliable indicators as well. Letters of recommendation, work and life experience, and the person's personal circumstances for example. All of these things could be more accurate than either the LAST score or the UGPA for determining how successful someone will be in law school. I know this because these alternative metrics apply to me. My LSAT score was NOT stellar. I am also a non-traditional student who based on my LSAT score and life's circumstances most people would think I would not succeed in law school. But through my past work and life experiences I have learned to work hard and be accountable for myself. Therefore, I am determined to put in the time and effort, make sacrifices, and settle for nothing less than success in law school.

I am currently a 1L at Concordia and am thriving in law school (based on the feedback I have received so far from my professors). For the July 2017 bar exam, Concordia had a 90% first time bar passage rate. Being a student at Concordia I can see why our first time bar passage rate is so high. The professors are phenomenal and are actually teaching us how to be practicing attorneys. It makes practical sense that the first time bar passage rate would be a more accurate indicator of how good a law school is than the LSAT scores or UGPAs of the admitted students. Sure, seeing Concordia produce 90% first time bar passing graduates goes against the grain of tradition and convention in the legal world. But it proves that it is not necessary for the LSAT score and UGPA to carry so much weight in how a law school is rated. Concordia has a system that works! They're not just trying to sound clever when they talk about "a new breed of lawyer." There is ABSOLUTE substance behind that phrase! Putting Concordia on the 10 worst law school list is a gross misrepresentation of the kind of legal education someone will receive at Concordia. They don't just teach legal theory, they teach their students how to be practicing attorneys. The legal community in the Treasure Valley (the greater Boise area) loves Concordia because they produce high quality graduates who know how to do their job. This is something many law schools have struggled to accomplish. I like the ole saying, "the proof is in the pudding." Just food for thought (pun intended).

[David Frakt]

familyman - This is a list of the schools with the least selective admissions policies. It is not intended to be a commentary on the quality of instruction at the school. It may be that Concordia has wonderful, highly dedicated and skilled instructors. No doubt, with such a small class, Concordia's professors are able to devote considerable personal attention to each student. But Concordia will not be able to sustain such a high bar pass rate by admitting students with weaker and weaker credentials each year. If they do, they will be the first law school ever to do so. And, like it or not, the reputation of any law school is significantly impacted by the perceived selectivity of the school. So the initial positive impression that Concordia may have made with the Boise bar is not likely to last as the bar pass rate inevitably drops. You are correct that an individual's LSAT score is not destiny. Some students are able to overcome modest indicators through hard work and determination and succeed in law school and in the legal profession. I hope that you will be prove to be one of them. Best of luck to you.