Troubled Law School Searches For New Dean -- No Experience In Legal Education Required

Wow, this seems a bit absurd.

‘I’ve passed many bars. I passed one on the way here. Is that what you meant? No? Does it matter?’

Your law school is in trouble. The American Bar Association has placed your school on probation for being out of compliance with numerous standards required for it to maintain accreditation. Your law school’s overall bar exam passage rate was once as high as 96.7 percent, but since then, things have taken such a terrible turn that your school’s overall passage rate dropped to 22.7 percent on the most recent exam. In an attempt to save your passage rates, your law school’s former dean is alleged to have begged graduates to forgo taking the exam, but not even that worked — graduates still posted the worst results in school history. The following summer, your school’s passage rates were even worse. Your law school was recently ordered to post a $1.5 million surety bond to protect students should it close.

You need a new dean, and you need one fast. What do you do?

If you’re a member of the administration at the Arizona Summit Law School, you apparently start your critically important dean search on Indeed.com.

“The job description is unbelievable. I couldn’t believe what I was reading,” one source said. “It is packed full of damning admissions of the school’s failed practices and polices. I expect any future lawsuit initiated in the wake of this school’s implosion to have this job posting attached as an exhibit to the complaint.” That said, let’s take a look (available in full on the next page).

After waxing philosophical about Arizona Summit’s mission to “diversify[] the nation’s least diverse white-collar profession,” whoever wrote this ad then explains that no traditional university would support this mission, which is why those behind the school were forced to turn to private capital for its funding (i.e., InfiLaw). The ad then explains that the law school is on probation, “primarily due to lack of rigor in its admissions policy and academic program and processes.” The new dean’s mission, should they choose to accept it, is to turn this law school around. Your job responsibilities include, but are not limited to, “creating a strong student value proposition that will attract qualified students,” “ensuring financial sustainability,” and last, but definitely not least, “maintaining accreditation and restoring the ABA’s confidence in the school.”

The final sentence of the job qualifications portion of the ad includes this gem, which really says all that one needs to know about working as a member of the administration at Arizona Summit Law: “Experience in legal education and law school administration is desirable, but is not an absolute requirement.”

Sponsored

Best of luck to anyone who applies to become the next dean of this embattled law school — you may need it, especially if you have absolutely no experience.

(Flip to the next page to see the Indeed.com job listing for Arizona Summit Law School’s dean search in full.)


Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Sponsored