Per the Faculty Lounge:
Today, the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar announced it is placing Charlotte Law School on probation for non-compliance with ABA Standards 301(a), 501(a), and 501(b). The remedial steps ordered include...
At the same time, the ABA Committee censured Valparaiso Law for non-compliance with Standards 501(a) and 501(b). The notice is here. The remedial steps ordered for Valpo were similar.
This got me thinking: we here at OTLSS have discussed Charlotte Law and Valpo Law several times, so it was interesting to see both of these schools pop-up as having run afoul of ABA standards. Interesting that these two schools should show up at the same time. Whatever could be the cause? How did this happen? If only there was only some thread of commonality in these stories...
Ha, who am I kidding? An astute commenter at TFL who uses the handle "fyi" had already connected the dots, as I am sure long-term readers of this blog have as well.
Friends, 0Ls, non-trads, it pays to look beneath the surface of the Law School Scam. So when you hear terms like "practice-ready," and "service," and "liberty," and "justice," remember who is saying it, and why. Is it being said to provide needed legal services to your community? Or is it being said to finance vanity projects at your expense?
Now that Indian Tech has bought the farm, you have to think that Charlotte is high on the list of law schools likely to close. In the fall of 2015, fewer than half as many 1L’s matriculated compared to 2012. Also, according to its 509 report, CLS has an astonishingly high 45% 1L attrition rate. If it’s going to survive, Charlotte needs to put more asses in more seats. The only way it can do that is by reducing admission standards from extremely lax to non-existent. Only it can’t do that now that its on probation. To the contrary, Charlotte is going to have to increase admission standards or it will lose its accreditation. That means less asses in seats. They’re in trouble.
ReplyDeleteThe Infilaw scamsters overleveraged their "law schools" based on the former reality of a deep applicant pool. That pool has almost dried up. We can only hope that Infilaw and all three of its debt mills go deep into bankruptcy, never to return.
ReplyDeleteC'mon, I'm jonesin' for another closin'. I want to see at least one Dean presenting a "Think Like a Homeless Person" lecture to a bunch of professors.
ReplyDeleteNice work!
ReplyDeleteNow that Trump has captured the top prize, and the perceived "sleights" that it will bring, I will be that law schools will lay on the "JUSTICE" mantra brand to sell law school seats. As Rahm Emanuel noted, "nothing beats a great crisis" to sell something. Even if that crisis is "manfactued."
ReplyDeleteThe notice of probation to Harlotte states the following, inter alia:
ReplyDelete"The Law School shall, by December 15, 2016, supply to the Committee its admissions data and admissions methodology, which includes the Law School’s admissions practices and policies, for the fall 2017 entering class. Where factors other than grade point average and LSAT are used to support an admissions decision, the Law School shall report those factors, explain how they are determined and applied in the review of applicant files, and report on any analyses that have been done or are contemplated to review the outcomes of admissions decisions based on these factors."
By the middle of December, when that report is due, Harlotte will have admitted much or even most of its next entering class. Harlotte could quite fairly claim that until the deadline for the report, or at least the date of the notice of probation, it did not particularize any set of factors for decisions on admission but merely relied on the "holistic" impressions of admi$$ions officers. So the ABA may not achieve much by demanding this information.
But note that the ABA suddenly sets store by GPA and LSAT, at least to the extent of not requiring justification of their use as factors in decisions on admission. Is the ABA not thereby acknowledging those factors' utility while also casting presumptive suspicion upon all other factors?
"...probation to Harlotte..."
DeleteDude, you misspelled "Prostitute"** again. Whaddup?
** Tryin' to keep it clean for the 0Ls.
Note that the long-serving Dean from Valpo, Dean Conison, went over to Charlotte a couple years ago.
ReplyDeleteOut of the frying pan, into the fire.
DeleteAs a lawyer, I damn my entire profession for allowing such mephitic toilets as the Infilaw chain ever to open their doors. The legal profession should uphold excellence. Instead, it promotes the notion that "law school is for everyone" in an unabashedly plutocratic manner unworthy even of those art schools that used to advertise on matchbooks ("If'n youse can draw this here teddy bear, youse is gonna have a great career as a artist through Bubba-Joe's Art Acadummy!").
ReplyDeleteI had to look up "mephitic." Great word, Old Guy!
DeleteSorry for my overwrought vocabulary. Last week I inadvertently baffled a judge with a literary allusion. I should strive to avoid unseemly displays of erudition.
Deletelook up "mephitic"
DeleteIt is possible that this is becuz you didna goto an elite law school.
In elite law schools, mephitics is in the very air you breathe.
So to speak.
I had to look up "mephitic" too, because none of you put it in the comments.
DeleteNoxious-smelling gas.
Mephitis is a noxious-smelling gas. Mephitic is a derived adjective meaning 'noxious-smelling'.
DeleteThe taxonomic name for the skunk is Mephitis mephitica.
Fart?
DeleteI have wrote this before on these forums. Law School is not a scam if there is full and complete disclosure. Similar to purchasing a used car. At least one can obtain a Car Fax report or a Rebuilt Vehicle Certificate and an AS IS declaration on the Morony Sticker.
ReplyDeleteLaw Schools must state up front that graduation and acceptance into the Bar is no longer a clear, sustainable path to a middle class income. Nothing is inherently wrong with selling a Grand Am with 262,000 miles, as long as you don't say gently used, like new.
Warning: The attorney general has determined that attending law school may be hazardous to your wealth.
DeleteAND cut off all federal loans to the shitbox law schools, AND take away any federal guarantees on private loans to those schools, AND make any private loans to those schools dischargeable in bankruptcy. Let the deans explain to private lenders how the Guaranteed Million Dollar Premium makes investing in another Toileteer a sure-fire investment.
DeleteAll but sixteen law schools at most are shitbox law schools. Cutting off the shitboxes means reducing enrollment by 90% or so. And that's fine by me.
DeleteStonemason, I'm with you on one and two but not three, and for two reasons. First, when one and two are in place market forces will come to bear and without federal involvement there will be no loans made. Even if a loan is not dischargeable in bankruptcy if the debtor can't make the payments and has no assets the best a lender can hope for is some miniscule wage garnishment that will last decades. Second, back in my day when there were about 160 ABA accredited schools and tuition was not yet insane a lot of people who could pay their loans tried to get rid of them in bankruptcy for no better reason than that they just didn't want to pay. I know a guy who tried it, graduated, got a decent job in a state AG's office and then filed Chapter 7. The judge threw his case out because he was perfectly capable of paying without any real hardship and was trying to use bankruptcy to get someone else to eat the cost of his education. Get the gubmint out of it and the problem will solve itself.
ReplyDeleteNote also that the ABA is giving _UNT a second bite at the apple of accreditation. Why, exactly? What has changed in the past few weeks?
ReplyDeleteThe ABA is utterly contemptible.
Ha! I just figured out your title, Duped. Nice work.
ReplyDeleteCampos didn't even mention the ABA's decisions... or law school in general in a while. He's lost his freakin' mind over there by the way.... maybe he WAS just another work-shy nerd professor who hates Republicans; or (non)Republicans who got the better of the party elite.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you talking about? Campos did a huge post about how Bill Clinton was paid $17.5 million by the for-profit scamsters at Laureate International University at the same time the Feds effectively shut down the for profit scam known as ITT by cutting off the loan dollars. Needless to say, Laureate is still going strong. Oh, wait . . . I guess Campos and his Protected Class friends over at LGM must have missed that one.
DeleteIs there any rhyme or reason as to why Charlotte and Valpo are in trouble but similar institutions like Arizona Summit, TJSL, and Fl Coastal are not?
ReplyDeleteGreat update, it's been so quiet on the law school scam movement, I thought we had died. The sooner some of these shite boxes close up the better. Campos has left the room.
ReplyDeleteThe ABA needs to crack down on placement. Ninety percent of students should get JD-required full time permanent jobs. Firms with one or two or three lawyers should not count unless the second/ third lawyer has at least some experience.
ReplyDeleteThe ABA also needs to crack down on the fact that 24,000 (class of 2015) or 26,000 (class of 2014) first year long term full-time JD required jobs do not add up to enough career jobs where the BLS says there are only 780,000 lawyer jobs. If people retire 40 years after law school on average (age 66-67), and you divide 780,000 by 40, you get 19,500 jobs a year. Using the 25,000 average first year placement, only 14,000 lawyers 19,500- (25,000 - 19,500)
will be working from the older law school classes. Law school classes have graduated 40,000 people for a long time. Only 14,000 of 40,000 can have jobs at older ages. That is maybe a 35% placement rate for older law school classes.
Why does the ABA ignore that these numbers mean that only a little more than half of the lawyers who get full-time permanent jobs at graduation will be able to work until retirement. The numbers do not add up otherwise.