Student v. School: Charlotte School of Law Sued by Student Seeking Admissions for Bankruptcy Proceeding

I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often. A student is demanding that his law school admit to scamming him out of money in open court.

Please note the UPDATE below.

And why? The student isn’t trying to recover tuition dollars directly from the school. Instead, the student is involved in the arduous process of trying to get his debts discharged through bankruptcy. As we’ve mentioned repeatedly, you can’t discharge student loans through the bankruptcy process absent a showing of undue hardship.

The student is named Kenneth Desormes. The school is Charlotte School of Law. And he wants Charlotte to admit what they did to him…

Desormes filed a request for admission from Charlotte in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Connecticut. The first few requests read like a standard “scamblog” type post:

REQUEST FOR ADMISSION

1. Admit that your business targets young, ambitious, and naïve individuals to enroll into an inferior legal education program.

2. Admit that your business lures these individuals through a very lucrative scholarship incentive program.

3. Admit that your business fails to fully disclose its accreditation status to prospective enrollees.

4. Admit that your business discourages and in fact inhibits the transfer of current students to other institutions.

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I’m not sure how this helps the kid show undue hardship, but it’s pretty funny.

The next section gets into the student’s personal issues:

5. Admit that your business did not provide adequate accommodation for students with learning disabilities until the Spring of 2009.

6. Admit that not all the students who attend your business meet the legal requirements for employment as attorneys due to a mental condition or criminal records.

7. Admit that the Plaintiff may have possessed either or both of these conditions at the time of enrollment.

8. Admit that your business received privy information in the Fall of 2008 that Plaintiff did not meet the legal requirements for employment as an attorney based on the conditions discussed in question 6.

9. Admit that your business ignored that information and persisted on originating several loans on behalf of the Plaintiff thereafter.

These questions get a little complicated. Surely Desormes isn’t arguing that law schools should discriminate against people with mental conditions and criminal records? We don’t want law schools to be de facto character and fitness review boards, do we? It’s not like Charlotte was targeting students with mental disabilities, right?

Desormes didn’t respond to our request for comment. The papers were filed last week and we haven’t been able to locate a response from Charlotte School of Law at this time.

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The student does end with a classic closing request:

10. Admit that your business knew or should have known that Plaintiff would be in no position to repay those loans.

Ha. It’ll be a cold day in hell before any law school admits to that.

UPDATE (12/6/17): Desormes reports that he has reached a successful settlement with Charlotte Law.

Earlier: Supreme Court Tackles Student Loan Debt