Law Schools, LLMs

Student Wastes Time Pursuing Law Degree He Was Ineligible To Receive, Tries To Sue School, Fails Miserably

Considering the law school allowed this charade to go on for so long, that's got to sting.

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I want my LLM degree!

I want my LLM degree!

Imagine it’s a few days before graduation. Like most students about to graduate, you’re ready to begin your bar studies, hit the books hard, and take the legal world by storm. Then, suddenly, your entire future comes crashing down around you. Your law school has informed you that the whole time you’ve been enrolled as a student and taking classes, you’ve been ineligible to complete the degree for which you’ve paid. You won’t be graduating with your class.

Are you going to sue? Of course you are, but the law school says this is all your fault. Nevertheless, you file suit for breach of contract, fraudulent inducement, and negligent misrepresentation, but an appellate court later rules in the law school’s favor.

What in the world is going on here?

This is the crazy fact pattern that’s featured in Salvador v. Touro College. Leodegario Salvador was a master’s student admitted to Touro Law Center’s LLM program for foreign-law-school graduates in January 2011. There was just one small problem: Salvador wasn’t a foreign-law-school graduate. Salvador, a native of the Philippines, had actually attended Novus University School of Law, an online law school. Touro admitted him under the impression that Novus Law was based in the Philippines, and claimed that for almost two years, it knew none the better. According to a unanimous appellate panel, Touro’s mistake was irrelevant. From the New York Law Journal:

Touro acknowledged that when it admitted Salvador in January 2011, it believed Novus University School of Law was a “brick-and-mortar” institution located in the Philippines, when in fact it is an online-only institution that is not accredited by any foreign authority. Touro alleges Novus is a “diploma mill” based in California that issues sham diplomas. …

Although Salvador did not “affirmatively or explicitly misrepresent facts on his application,” he was “implicitly stating that he satisfied the program’s prerequisites for attendance, in particular, the requirement that he had attended a foreign law school,” [Justice David] Saxe wrote.

Saxe said Salvador had “knowingly allowed Touro to admit him on the basis of inaccurate information.”

That’s rich. Touro Law, the landslide choice for worst law school in New York, is referring to another law school as a “diploma mill.” Pot, please allow us to introduce you to kettle — we think you’d get along really well with each other. If you thought that’s where this ended, then think again. Touro went so far as to file suit against Novus, seeking a declaratory judgment that the school was a “diploma mill” under the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008. (That suit was later tossed out because Touro didn’t “sufficiently allege its standing”; the school is currently appealing that decision.)

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Touro contested Salvador’s version of events, saying his “official law school transcript was not supplied until months after his admission, preventing the school from discerning from the outset the true nature of that institution.” Later, the school claims it found out about the true nature of Novus Law “months” before Salvador was due to graduate. Just how long did it take Touro to find out Novus wasn’t a foreign law school? Even if it was received “months after [Salvador’s] admission,” wouldn’t the transcript have Novus Law’s address on it somewhere? Even if the address were on the back of the transcript, it’s still right there, on the transcript. Will this law school accept anyone capable of signing loan documents, so long as they claim to have attended a law school?

Touro purportedly offered Salvador a refund, but the school claims he elected to continue his studies as a nonmatriculated student in order to meet qualifications to take the D.C. bar exam. Salvador claimed he was never told during that discussion that he wouldn’t be able to graduate. Writing on behalf of the court, Justice Saxe concluded, “Pursuant to the school’s code of conduct, the terms of the application and the law, the school had no contractual obligation to award a degree under these circumstances.” Considering the law school allowed this charade to go on for so long, that’s got to sting.

In these times of trouble in the legal academy, it’s even more important that students be circumspect in their choice of law school — they “cannot be passive in determining whether a program they are applying to meets their needs.” Be careful where you apply, because you certainly don’t want to waste your time like Leodegario Salvador did.

Panel Finds Student Ineligible for LLM Cannot Sue Touro [New York Law Journal]

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