One More Reason To Sanction Charleston School of Law

Charleston Law School was tied for fifth with Thomas Jefferson in my list of the least selective law schools in the country for the 2017 entering class, with LSATs of 148/145/142.   In another recent column, I noted that Charleston had a dismal 43.59% first-time bar passage rate in 2017, down from 58.60% in 2016.   South Carolina has just released information on the pass rate for the February 2018 bar and Charleston grads are still struggling.  Only 21 of 64 Charleston students who took the exam passed, for a 32.81% pass rate, as compared to the average for takers from all other schools at 62.5% (120 of 192).  South Carolina does not distinguish between first-time takers and repeat takers so we don’t know exactly what the first-time pass rate was, but it was almost certainly very bad.  And it is important to keep in mind that South Carolina has among the easiest bar exams in the country with a cut score of 266 on the Uniform Bar Exam.  If Charleston students can’t pass the South Carolina bar, they are unlikely to fare better in other states. 

Readers may remember that Charleston fended off advances from InfiLaw in 2014 out of concerns that Infilaw’s lower academic standards would damage the school’s reputation if InfiLaw took over.  But Charleston is now admitting students very nearly as weak as Charlotte School of Law and Florida Coastal did at their nadir, and Charleston’s bar pass rates are very nearly as bad as the nearest InfiLaw school, Florida Coastal.  Florida Coastal’s first-time bar pass rate was 40% for 2016 and 39.52% in 2017, but the Florida bar is tougher than the South Carolina bar.  Ironically, Florida Coastal is now turning things around, while Charleston is going in the opposite direction.  Florida Coastal has significantly raised standards (151/148/145 for 2017), and, significantly, refused to take most of Charlotte’s transfer students last year, enrolling only 4.  In contrast,  Charleston took in an incredible 58 transfer students from Charlotte.  Those students, primarily from the 2016 entering class at Charlotte, had incredibly weak entrance credentials, (LSAT 148/144/141  GPA 3.07/2.80/2.48), weaker even than the abysmal entrance credentials at Charleston that year. Predictably, these students did very poorly at Charlotte.  The median 1L GPA of the group of transfer students was an anemic 2.33.  Although students with first year law school GPAs below 2.5 are at very high risk of bar failure, Charleston took dozens of such students, virtually assuring a continued very low bar passage rate for the next couple of years. 

Clearly, Charleston is no longer worried about its reputation and seems to be following the InfiLaw/Thomas Cooley playbook of maximizing revenue for as long as they can get away with it. It is a shame that this once promising school has sunk to such depths. 

It is high time for the ABA to step in and put a stop to this exploitation. 

Comments

[Anonny Prof]

I wish this blog could return to the days when it wasn't hijacked by David Frakt and his endless, agenda-laden rants.

[a]

There seems to be no place anymore for objectivity. When the FL was used as a platform for debating the law school "scam" issue, it was the same. Partisans entered to hawk their wares like shameless used auto salespersons. But, as least then, the participation was enough to counter and advance the discussion of the issues. Now, DSSLC.

[Deep State Special Legal Counsel]

^^^I have a sh** eating grin on my face just like my pal Donald John Trump! I can't believe people love and admire me this much...I didn't even post here and I get play. Wow. Yes, I am a partisan. I lean left, but don't fall over. Since this an academic blog, diversity of opinion and status should be welcome, especially from a heavy hitter boutique AV Rated Leading Super Lawyer.

[Rick Bales]

Ad hominem attacks such as those above do not advance discourse and demonstrate the weakness of the commenters' arguments. I would assume that is why they are posted anonymously.