Northwestern Law’s much ballyhooed accelerated two-year J.D. program is being canned. Dean Daniel B. Rodriguez announced the decision via email on Friday:
I write to inform you that we are suspending indefinitely admissions recruitment for our Accelerated JD program. Consequently, we will not be enrolling a new class of AJD students this coming spring.
This decision was a difficult one — a conclusion I have reached after many months of deliberation and consultation with numerous individuals throughout our university and law school community, the legal academy, and our profession, and after a careful review of relevant internal and external data. In the end, I have determined that this course is the best one for the time being in order to advance the strategic priorities of our law school.
Ultimately, offering a two-year J.D. program that costs as much as a three-year J.D. program was always doomed to failure. The market is demanding price sensitivity, and Northwestern’s program offered none of that. I’ve written about it before and I’ve said as much to Dean Rodriguez. The market was never there to pay this much for “non-traditional” law school. If you are looking for somebody to run your law school, I’m standing right here.
The Hidden Threat: How Fake Identities used by Remote Employees Put Your Business at Risk—and How to Defend Against This
Based on our experience in recent client matters, we have seen an escalating threat posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) information technology (IT) workers engaging in sophisticated schemes to evade US and UN sanctions, steal intellectual property from US companies, and/or inject ransomware into company IT environments, in support of enhancing North Korea’s illicit weapons program.
Of course, members of Northwestern’s administration would rather blame the ABA for the program’s struggles, not their own misapprehension of the market. From Dean Rodriguez’s email:
The small size of our program has presented myriad challenges, not only within the program itself but across our law school. In short, dealing with this smaller program has impacted our ability to serve the objectives and needs of all our law students.
Further constraining our plans, recent changes in ABA regulations limited our ability to enroll a sizable cohort of students from the pool of GMAT test-takers. Some of you may recall that a core component of the AJD program’s strategic implementation was to attract a substantial number of students who had taken the GMAT, including those who had already begun to develop many of the core competencies identified in Plan 2008. Due to a number of factors, many of which are beyond our control, the applicant pool has remained relatively constant. It is apparent that the substantial growth necessary to achieve our intended size, a size that justifies its resource requirements, is highly unlikely in the near term. Should circumstances change, we remain open to resuming this program at a future date…
I am certain that in another era, under differing economic circumstances, and under a more flexible regulatory climate, this program would have flourished. Indeed, at some point, it still may.
The ABA seems to exist to prevent law schools from innovating, and this is no different. It is absolutely true that that the ABA’s refusal to allow law schools to experiment contributed to the failure of Northwestern’s program. It just also happens to be true that Northwestern’s refusal to charge people two years’ worth of tuition for two years of education killed the market for its program. Rodriguez thinks people should have the choice to take two or three years to go to law school, but he still wants to charge by the degree.
Of course, there were students who saw the value in that. At the very least, the accelerated program saved a year of living expenses and got students to the point where they were earning money more quickly than a traditional J.D. program. And those students feel quite screwed right now. From our inbox:
Calculate Your Firm’s Time-Saving Potential
Want more time for what matters most? MyCase streamlines your firm so you can focus on winning cases. See how much time you could save with our Law Firm Time Savings Calculator—try it now!
As far as I know there has been zero dialogue or discussion with AJD alums. As an AJD class of 2013 I can only speak to my class but almost all of my classmates (all that wanted to) have gotten jobs in Biglaw and I know our employment rate was higher than the general JDs. I would have never considered going to law school without the AJD program and I know the same is the case with many of my classmates. The AJD brought a unique and interesting group of students to the school. We were hardworking, successful and quite frankly paid the same as our three-year counterparts. In a landscape where traditional legal education seems antiquated and in desperate need of reform, I always looked with pride in Northwestern and the AJD as a front runner in legal education reform. But Dean Rodriguez had negated all of that and apparently has no consideration for how his alumni feel about the situation. I can only hope that as they have cancelled my program they will cancel any attempt to get donations from me or my classmates in the future.
Northwestern (I mean, Dean Rodriguez) digs in its (his) heels re: traditional law school programming. Cause that’s working so well for everyone these days.
Good job blaming it on the GMAT. I think there were 1 or 2 people tops that relied on that each year.
Sad. I’m now part of a dying breed. The bloodline dies with me.
Northwestern will fully support the program until the currently enrolled students graduate. I don’t think the program failed the kids who matriculated. I think it failed to offer prospective law students the price competitiveness they desire.