Cooley Law Forgets That Truth Is A Defense To Defamation

Cooley Law's defamation suit against the firm that sued over its allegedly misleading job stats gets tossed on summary judgment.

[T]he statement that “[Thomas M. Cooley Law School] grossly inflates its graduates’ reported mean salaries” may not merely be protected hyperbole, but actually substantially true.

— Judge Robert J. Jonker, in an opinion granting summary judgment to the defendants in Cooley Law’s defamation suit against disbanded firm Kurzon Strauss and Jesse Strauss and David Anziska, the original law school litigation dream team. Jonker goes on to cite MacDonald v. Cooley Law, in which the court declared the average starting salary listed in the school’s 2010 Employment Report to be “objectively untrue.”

(Keep reading if you’d like to see Judge Jonker’s eminently quotable opinion.)

Opinion Granting SJ Motion: Cooley Law v. Kurzon Strauss

Opinion and Order: Thomas M. Cooley Law School v. Kurzon Strauss [W.D. Mich., Southern Div.]
Judge dismisses Cooley Law School’s defamation lawsuit against New York law firm [MLive.com]
Cooley Law defamation suit against law firm and bloggers critical of its job stats is nixed by judge [ABA Journal]

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