The 2018-19 Bottom Ten Law Schools

The 2018 ABA 509 Required Disclosures are hot off the press and I couldn’t wait to delve into the numbers and see who has been naughty and who has been nice.

The title for the least selective law school in the country goes to:

1. 2017 Defending Champion - Western Michigan University Thomas Cooley! Once again, Cooley tops the bottom 10 list, but this year there is a twist. Last fall, the ABA found that Cooley was out of compliance with ABA Standard 501 on Admissions. Cooley sued the ABA, and in March 2018, the ABA essentially capitulated and found Cooley back in compliance with Standard 501(b), based on “concrete steps” that the school was making to improve its admissions policies. I analyzed those steps in this post, and predicted that they would barely make a difference in the credentials of the admitted students. Well, guess what?  Turns out I was right.

Let’s compare the credentials of the 2017 entering class with the credentials of the 2018 entering class:

 

	LSAT 75%	LSAT 50%	LSAT 25%	GPA 75%	GPA 50%	GPA 25%	% admits
2017	146	142	139	3.27	2.94	2.59	85.56%
2018	147	142	139	3.33	3.02	2.64	86.13%

 

So, did Western Michigan Cooley improve its admissions standards and get more selective, as it promised to the ABA?   Not so much. Although it is true that their 75% LSAT went up by one point, and GPAs overall are up by a miniscule .06, the all-important 50% and 25% LSAT are identical.  More tellingly, the percentage of students admitted actually increased from 2017 to 2018.   And the entering class size increased from 458 to 541.   What this means is that Cooley enrolled at least 135 students with LSATs at 139 or below, the bottom 12% of all LSAT takers.   Cooley actually had a chance to significantly raise standards because the number of applicants increased from 1295 to 1456 (call it the Michael Cohen bump), but of course Cooley chose to do what it always chooses to do – maximize profit.   Bottom line:  the ABA got suckered big time.  If the ABA wants to have any hope of preserving its credibility, it will immediately rescind its decision to find Cooley back in compliance and place the school on probation.  How can the least selective law school in the country, with the lowest 25% LSAT by 3 points compared to the next least selective school, be in compliance with Standard 501?

2.  Southern University (last year’s rank: tied for 3) 146/144/142  3.13/2.83/2.55.  The good news: Southern raised its LSAT 25% by one point.  The bad news:  Southern dropped its 25% GPA by .03.   Southern has miraculously escaped sanction by the ABA despite many years of abysmal admissions standards and poor and declining performance on the bar.   But hey, if Cooley is in compliance, then I guess everybody is in compliance, right?

3. (tie) Appalachian School of Law (last year – tied for 3).147/144/143  3.32/3.05/2.64 Holding steady at 3 is Appalachian. Currently out of compliance with Standard 501, Appalachian raised its 25% and 50% LSAT by 2 and 1 points respectively, but its 75% dropped 2 points, and the school only enrolled 50 1Ls, compared to 73 last year.  Appalachian is in trouble.   

3. (tie) Texas Southern (last year – tied for 2) 2018: 147/144/143  3.37/3.03/2.73   Texas Southern was found out of compliance with a bunch of Standards including 501(b) in June 2017 and ordered to take remedial action.  They were supposed to come up with a reliable plan to come into compliance.  LSATs are up from 146/143/141 and GPAs are also slightly up, while class size is down from 256 to 217. So Texas Southern (unlike Cooley) has taken concrete steps to improve, although, in my estimation, it still has a way to go before the ABA should relieve it from further remedial action.

5.  North Carolina Central University (last year: 7) NC Central was found out of compliance with Standard 501(b) last December, then promised to raise their standards and the ABA found them back in compliance in June after taking “concrete steps. . .with respect to its admission policy and practices”.  So, how much did NC Central improve?  Last year they were at 149/145/142  3.43/3.22/2.95.  This year: 150/146/144 3.50/3.26/3.07.  These are real, significant, improvements.  (Note to WMU Thomas Cooley – this is what “concrete steps” actually look like.)  Furthermore, NC Central pledged to admit no students with an LSAT below 142.  NC Central had to shrink its class from 166 to 103 to make this happen.  NCC is to be commended for the great strides it has taken. 

6.  Concordia (last year: 10) Concordia is at 151/148/144 3.52/3.05/2.80 with 59 students enrolled.  Their median is up one point and their bottom GPA is up from 2.59, so the school is going in the right direction.  But the school needs to stop admitting students below 145 if they ever want to gain respectability.

7.  (tie) Thomas Jefferson and Florida A&M (last year 5 and 8): TJ, currently on probation with the ABA, shrank to 59 students with a profile of 149/147/145 3.09/2.80/2.53. This is a significant improvement from last year’s 147/144/142  3.11/2.84/2.59, but is still too low, so long as California maintains its current tough cut score for bar passage.   FAMU has thus far evaded ABA action, despite very poor bar results.  FAMU is at 149/146/145 3.36/3.09/2.79, up one point at the 25% LSAT but otherwise unchanged.  FAMU did shrink its class size from 222 to 190 and admitted 49% of applicants, compared to 53% last year, so they appear to have made modest improvements to the bottom end of the class.  This will probably be enough to keep FAMU out of trouble with the ABA, especially since they are above NCCU, which has now been held back in compliance.

9.  Widener Commonwealth – New to the list this year, Widener shrank its class from 128 to 117 but still could not maintain its admission standards. Although it held firm at the 50% and 25%, its 75% dropped troublingly.  2017: 150/147/145  2018: 148/147/145.

10.  University of the District of Columbia – UDC had a similarly credentialed class this year as last year, but had to shrink the class from 93 students to just 64 to maintain their standards.               2017: 151/148/145  3.22/2.95/2.60  2018: 150/147/145  3.17/2.92/2.72.   There is probably one too many law schools in DC right now.   UDC is in trouble. 

Dishonorable Mention: There are several other law schools with 25% LSATs at 145: Ave Maria, Charleston, Mississippi College, North Dakota and Roger Williams.  These schools have apparently calibrated that 145 is good enough to stay out of trouble with the ABA, and they are probably right. 

More notes on Last Year’s Bottom 10:

Atlanta’s John Marshall was tied for 8 last year at 149/146/144. The school was found out of compliance with Standard 501.   This year they raised the incoming profile considerably to 152/149/147, up 3 points across the board.  The school shrank from 194 1Ls in 2017 to 108 this year and accepted only 46% of applicants compared to 52.5% last year.  Bafflingly, the ABA determined in November (announced just today) (see also here) that the school was still out of compliance with 501(a)  and (b) and placed the school on probation, imposing specific remedial actions.  The school also dramatically decreased its academic attrition rate from the previous year from 22% to 12%.  It is not at all clear what prompted the decision to place Atlanta’s John Marshall on probation. At least on the face of it, it appears grossly unfair.  Expect an appeal and possible lawsuit against the ABA for arbitrary and capricious action.

Speaking of unfair, there at least 30 schools (not counting Puerto Rican schools) with lower admissions standards than Florida Coastal School of Law in 2018.  Florida Coastal shrank to 60 students and raised its standards to 153/150/147   3.36/3/14/2.83 compared to last year’s class of 106 students at 151/148/145 3.10/2.83/2.59.  This is an enormous improvement, and places Florida Coastal above Barry, FAMU and St. Thomas in Florida, none of which have been found out of compliance with admissions standards, yet the ABA persists in finding Florida Coastal in continued non-compliance with 501(b). 

Overall, the news on the admission front is good. There are far fewer law schools exploiting unqualified students.  Sadly, the one law school that unquestionably is, Western Michigan Thomas Cooley, is getting away with it.

Disclaimer and note to prospective law students and other readers: This post is not intended to suggest that the law schools on the "Bottom 10" list are the "worst" law schools in the U.S., or even that any of the law schools in this post offer a sub-par legal education.  My focus is on whether law schools are exploiting students by admitting applicants who are at very high risk of failure.  Many law schools that are not particularly selective in their admissions requirements nevertheless offer a high quality legal education.  Prospective students should look at other measures such as bar passage rates, job placement rates, and average indebtedness to determine if a law school offers a good value proposition.  Look at Law School Transparency's Law School Reports for the best information. (Disclosure - I am the Chair of LST's National Advisory Council)  Be sure to ask the admissions office at law schools to which you are applying for specific data about how law students with similar LSATs and GPAs to yours have fared at that law school in recent years.  I recommend that students with LSAT scores at 146 or below take the LSAT again (after studying for the exam using Khan Academy's free prep course) or consider another profession.  Chances are you will struggle in law school and there is a very good chance that you will academically attrit or fail the bar. 

 

Comments

[Richard Hunt]

The quality of a law school is measured by the quality of its graduates, not the quality of those it admits. The only way to determine whether someone has what it takes to succeed as a lawyer is to give that person a chance to succeed or fail. Cooley and other similar law schools do exactly that. With respect to deceiving incoming students it must be remembered that while law students are usually young they are not children. They are typically old enough to vote, old enough to serve in the armed forces, and old enough to marry without the consent of any other adult. Nor are they likely to suffer any significant metal deficit - they will always have graduated with at least a Bachelors degree from a four year college or university. These incoming law students are old enough and smart enough to make their own decisions about what risks they choose to take. There is nothing wrong with offering an opportunity as long as no deception is involved, and making the offer is not deceptive in any way.

Finally, if one wants to measure whether a law school succeeds in graduating competent lawyers the real test is bar passage rates, which are just as artificial as LSAT scores but at least measure the product of a legal education. The schools whose students cannot pass the bar are those that need to be examined by the ABA because they are demonstrated rather than theoretical failures.

[anon]

Richard

IMHO, you are totally correct: inputs are irrelevant. Attrition, bar pass rates, and employment rates, are the right measures of law school effectiveness.

Attrition is relevant because crass bottom feeders admit a portion of the first year year class that they know will be doomed to be ousted (literally, as a result of the curve and factors that Frakt notes). These schools do this simply to reap the extra revenue, under the guise of "opportunity" - when experience, year after year, as Frakt notes, tells them with some certainty which students will be ousted. The harvesting of the federal loan money borrowed by these persons is one of the most pernicious and dishonest practices tolerated by the ABA, DOE, etc.

The reason this isn't a fully "comparative fault" instance is that one party is acting intentionally, and with superior skill and knowledge and malign intent, and the other person is acting negligently.

Yes, a student can discover that a law school has been cited by the ABA in the past for non compliance and is now being cited for the same non compliance with the same rules for the same reasons, but not, for example, as a result of reading Frakt. He rarely focuses on repeat offenders, and, insofar as I have read is work on this blog, rarely draws appropriate attention to the significance of a law school that, for example, was on probation about ten years ago, and then, after a brief period of putative compliance, falls right back into the same hole: as a result, perhaps, of faculty incompetence, another subject Frakt and most other "experts" won't address.

Yes, a prospective student could study the bar pass and employment rates (thanks to the "law school scam movement" (which Frakt joined mostly after the present round of gains were won), but this information needs to balanced with the way law schools present information to a prospective applicant.

Go to a bottom feeder's website. You will see enough bragging and boasting and bogus awards to convince you that that school is Yale Law School. Somewhere, buried in the links, is a pdf that, once deciphered (and fully compared with other schools, which the ABA doesn't seem to require) might suggest something is amiss.

Yes, USNWR is available. But, in an inexplicable move, it now lumps together a huge number of schools as "unrated" making it impossible to identify the worst offenders.

If, year after year, a law school produces a graduate class that, in the main, can't pass the bar and then obtain within a reasonable period of time full time jd required employment (because the reputation of the law school is so poor) then federal student loans should no longer be approved for that school. It is a rip off to take the money of students knowing that the prospects are so dim, and the hopes and expectations of the students, while perhaps negligent, are no excuse.

Every con man blames the mark.