Dead, Dying and Zombie Law Schools

Happy Day After Halloween. In the ghoulish spirit of the season, here is a is a quick update on some of America's most troubled law schools:

The Dying:

Arizona Summit is closing.  On Oct 24, the school submitted a revised teach-out plan to the ABA after its initial plan was disapproved by the ABA in September.  Under the proposed plan, the ABA would agreed to refrain from revoking the school’s accreditation until the current students graduate, and the school would drop its appeal of the ABA's decision to revoke its accreditation.  (It is not clear if this would also include dropping its lawsuit against the ABA.)  The school did not admit new students this fall and has only 22 students remaining.  At its peak in 2011, Arizona Summit (then known as Phoenix Law) has 1092 students enrolled, but after substantially lowering admission standards, its bar passage rates cratered, leading to the school being placed on probation, and ultimately, having its accreditation revoked.  A large cohort of 25 Arizona Summit students transferred to the University of North Dakota Law School this fall.  UND gained this student windfall by agreeing to accept all the credits the students had earned at Arizona Summit.  UND took a page from Appalachian’s playbook, which last year took 16 transfer students from Arizona Summit’s now defunct sister school, Charlotte Law.

Valparaiso Law School is closing.  Valparaiso also did not enroll first year students this year and has about 100 second and third year students moving through.  Valpo killed itself by substantially lowering admissions standards, which led to huge declines in bar passage rates, and resulted in ABA   sanctions.  (See a pattern here?) Valparaiso tried to give its law school away to Middle Tennessee State University, but the move was rejected last month by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission after objections from the five law schools already in Tennessee.

Thomas Jefferson Law School has announced that it won’t enroll new students for the spring semester, as it has done in the past.  The law school also applied for and received accreditation from the State Bar of California. As a California-accredited school, TJSL grads will be able to take the California bar, even if the school loses ABA accreditation, which is a distinct possibility. The school is currently on probation with the ABA, and there are little signs of the kinds of improvement that would get the school back in compliance with ABA Standards.  Because of financial woes, the school had to move out of its fancy new building into a smaller, cheaper office building, which did not go over well with students.  The seemingly insurmountable issues faced by Thomas Jefferson may have been a factor in the decision of Dean Joan Bullock to announce her resignation after just a year on the job.

The Dead:

Charlotte Law School, which ceased operating last year, reached a $2.7 million settlement in a class action lawsuit by students.  At its peak in 2013, Charlotte enrolled 1410 students, according to its 2013 509 Report.  Charlotte got so big by dramatically lowering its standards, and it kept lowering them until the school's bar passage rate tanked, which ultimately led to ABA sanctions and withdrawal of federal loan eligibility from the Department of Education. Lawyers for the students are still trying to figure out a way to go after deep-pocked Sterling Partners, the owners of InfiLaw, which operated Charlotte Law School. Sterling Partners has thus far evaded any financial liability for the debacles at Charlotte Law and Arizona Summit.

The Zombie:

Zombies can’t be killed and they destroy the lives of a lot of people.  That is a pretty good description of Western Michigan University Thomas Cooley School of Law, America’s least selective ABA-Accredited law school.  WMU-Cooley has had a sub 50% first time bar pass rate for at least the last two years.  Last year Cooley was (finally) found out of compliance by the ABA for failure to comply with Standard 501, the admissions standard.  Rather than agree to change its ways, as other schools found out of compliance have done, Cooley sued the ABA, claiming arbitrary and capricious enforcement of the Standards.   The ABA then inexplicably reversed itself and found Cooley back in compliance with Standard 501, (providing compelling evidence in support of Cooley’s claim of arbitrary and capricious enforcement) after Cooley promised some extremely minor adjustments to its admission practices.  The ABA also acquiesced to Cooley’s request to open another branch on the campus of Western Michigan State in Kalamazoo, which the ABA had originally rejected.  Back in June, I predictedthat the two sides were nearing a settlement of the lawsuit. Earlier this week, the parties formally settled the lawsuit.

Comments

[dupednontraditional]

Sadly, the take-away message in the Cooley case is "put up a fuss and make the ABA spend some of its dwindling budget on actual enforcement, then the charges go away." Guess that's liberty and justice for you.

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The language "destroyed the lives of a lot of people" was used to characterize "zombie" law schools. Hyperbole. They did give lots of folks a chance to chase three bill DUI's and low speed soft tissue rear enders. If you graduated from Iowa Central Baptist Torah Tech with a 2.1 GPA in Marketing and work 70 hours a week as an Assistant Manager at Ross for $47K a year, you can earn roughly the same as a Solo/Small firm lawyer working 50 hours. And, you might get Thanksgiving and Christmas off. You get to call yourself a LAWYER!!! ESQ!!! ATTORNEY AT LAW. Yeah Baby!!! And maybe, just maybe, some air crash victim's family will some how pick up the phone and call you! You will then refer it to a real PI guy who will split with you. Never know....