Golden Gate Receives Out-of-Compliance Letter from the ABA

As reported in the ABA Journal, Golden Gate University School of Law this week received notice that they are “significantly out of compliance” with ABA Standard 501(b) and Interpretations, 501-1, 501-2 and 501-3.  This was not a result of an ABA site visit (the school is not due for a visit until 2019-20), but rather of the ABA’s monitoring of the school’s admissions figures, attrition rates, and perhaps to some extent, bar passage rates.  A review of the key statistics from Golden Gate demonstrate that the ABA’s action was absolutely warranted.  For the last four years, Golden Gate has admitted classes with at least 25% of students in my very high (145-146) to extremely high risk (144 and below) categories by LSAT, and their part-time classes have been even weaker.   As the entrance credentials have dropped, the attrition rate has predictably risen, and the bar pass rate has predictably fallen.  Golden Gate has significantly exceeded the presumptive exploitation standard of 20% non-transfer attrition for the last three years, and their bar pass rate has been greater than 15% below the state average continuously for the last four years.  

Golden Gate University School of Law  Statistics 2013-2017

Year	Fulltime 25% LSAT	Fulltime 25% GPA	Part-time 25% LSAT	Part-time 25% GPA	Non-transfer attrition	First-time Bar Pass Rate
2012	149	2.79	145	2.77	12.65%	67.61%
2013	148	2.79	146	2.72	11.7%	55.67%
2014	146	2.75	145	2.53	24.3%	45.14%
2015	145	2.73	143	2.70	29.0%	38.89%
2016	146	2.72	144	2.77	30.5%	35.40%
2017	146*	2.72*	146*	2.72*	TBD	48.86%

*509 Reports no longer report full and part-time divisions separately as of 2017

What is particularly interesting about the ABA’s actions is that Golden Gate’s current bottom 25% LSAT numbers are higher than all the other schools that have heretofore been found to violate Standard 501.  Of the dozen other schools found out of compliance with 501 (Ave Maria, Arizona Summit, Appalachian, Charlotte, Florida Coastal, John Marshall Atlanta, LMU Duncan, North Carolina Central, Texas Southern, WMU Thomas Cooley, Thomas Jefferson, Valparaiso) John Marshall Atlanta was the previous high 25% LSAT (25% 144 for 2017, 145 for 2016)  before LMU Duncan was found out of compliance last week (25% 145 for 2017, 146 for 2016). 

There are a couple of possible explanations for this.  One is that that the ABA may be slowly ratcheting up the minimum standards that they expect for compliance with Standard 501.  Or it could be that the ABA recognizes that California schools need to have slightly stronger admission standards because of the relative difficulty of the California bar.  Or it could be that the ABA is looking beyond the reported quartiles and more closely scrutinizing the bottom 24% of admitted students, who may be substantially worse qualified.  Or it could be that Golden Gate’s extraordinarily high attrition rates and extraordinarily low bar pass rates were just too atrocious to ignore any longer.  

Whatever the reasons, the ABA’s latest actions suggest that there are several other law schools that are likely to be found out of compliance with Standard 501(b) as well.  My top candidates for ABA action in the near future are Charleston and Southern.  While there are still a few law schools engaging in exploitative admissions practices that have not yet been put on notice by the ABA, these are the two most egregious offenders, in my opinion.  In fact, at both these schools, the median 50% LSAT is lower than Golden Gate’s 25%.  I have made the case for sanctioning Southern before (see here and here), so won’t bother repeating it here.  As for Charleston, they have had predatory admission standards since 2014 and made matters worse by accepting 58 transfers from Charlotte Law last year with extremely weak credentials.  These students are likely to lower Charleston’s already dismal bar passage rate – 43.59% for 2017 first-time takers.  Incidentally, Charlotte Law graduates went 0 for 11 for first-time takers on the February 2018 North Carolina Bar, with repeaters faring only slightly better, with 8 of 73 passing (11%).  This is the fallout from Charlotte’s unconscionable admission and retention practices that led to their closure.  While this infusion of dozens of tuition paying students from Charlotte was undoubtedly a financial windfall for Charleston,  the decision could very well come back to bite the school later.

I hope and expect the ABA to take action against these schools in the near future.

Other schools that should be worried include (but are not limited to): South Dakota, Southern Illinois, Roger Williams, FAMU, and Widener Commonwealth.