Did A Law School Pay Its Own Graduates Not To Take The Bar Exam?

The National Law Journal recently reported that, a lawsuit filed by a former employee of Arizona Summit Law School has unearthed some very troubling allegations about the school’s deceptive conduct towards its students. The suit alleges that Summit enrolled students who were totally unqualified to attend law school, and then paid them to delay taking the bar exam, since it was determined that they had virtually no chance of passing.

Paula Lorina, former assistant director of financial aid at Arizona Summit Law School, brought the lawsuit, claiming it unlawfully fired her in 2013 after she refused to submit false state tax documents and complained of misleading information being reported about student successes.

The specific allegations regarding students were that the school began enrolling any applicant who took Alternative Admissions Model Program for Legal Education (AAMPLE) a 7-week, $500 online law course, regardless of the applicant’s undergraduate grade-point averages or LSAT scores.

Then, because many of these students were judged to have virtually no chance of passing the bar exam, the school offered some of them $5,000 each to delay taking the test. These students were selected by Arizona Summit using it’s “bar exam failure predictor formula” that took into account students’ LSAT scores and law school grade-point averages.

The school allegedly “gamed” its bar test passage rates in order to retain its accreditation and receive other benefits, such as its Title IV eligibility from the Department of Education.

It is unethical for a law school to admit students who it believes have little chance of passing the bar exam. While taking unqualified applicants may create a continuing source of revenue for an institution, it costs these students tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and they may be left without a viable career after working hard and attending 3 or 4 years of law school.

Studies have shown that a student’s performance on the LSAT and their first year grades in law school have a direct correlation to their performance on the MBE portion of the bar exam, which in most states makes up at least 40% of the overall bar exam score. If you are concerned that you could be one of the students most at risk of failing, improving this MBE score can be the key for you to pass. We offer a program called The MBE Maximizer, which shows students taking a regular bar review course the tricks they need to know to improve their MBE scores. These methods are not taught in any regular bar review course. You can find out more about the MBE Maximizer here.

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