| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 15, 2016
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Contact: Monique Whitney, APR o. (602) 359-0626 or m. (505) 480-4150 [email protected] |
ARIZONA SUMMIT ANNOUNCES PLAN FOR UNIVERSITY RELATIONSHIP
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University Affiliation Will Enhance Reputation and Help Improve Outcomes
PHOENIX, AZ (August 11, 2016): Arizona Summit Law School (Summit), one of the nation’s few independent law schools, intends to affiliate with a major university within the year.
“The decision to affiliate reflects the strong commitment we have to our students,” said Donald Lively, Arizona Summit president. “We conducted a survey of our students and learned that 67% of them would prefer attending a law school that is part of a university system. Toward this end, we are negotiating with a few universities that share our mission and values. The advantages of this transition are multifold. It will strengthen Summit’s reputation, make its program more affordable, reduce the institution’s tuition dependency, result in stronger academic support systems and improved outcomes, enhance faculty and institutional development opportunities, create interdepartmental synergies, and significantly enhance the ability to achieve our mission of diversifying legal education and the legal profession.”
Founded in 2005, Summit was designed and developed by legal educators concerned about the direction of traditional legal education, which has drifted from the realities of the contemporary legal profession. Summit recognizes not only the need for change, but also the opportunity to become a benchmark institution for the 21st Century. Its goals include graduating students who truly are practice-ready and, most importantly, diversifying one of the nation’s least diverse professions.
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In its short history, Summit has earned numerous awards for diversity and innovation – including being a two-time winner of the American Bar Association Gambrell Award. Summit students last year logged more than 100,000 public service hours. The school’s career placement rate historically has ranked favorably among the nation’s 50 tier two law schools. It has a student loan default rate of less than 2%, which is one of the best among the nation’s universities and law schools (including many state universities and ivy league schools).
Dean Shirley Mays notes that, “our mission entails admitting many students from disadvantaged backgrounds who have lower entering credentials but the potential to succeed. Our ability to and record of enabling success is evidenced by an ultimate bar pass rate that complies with ABA standards, our strong career placement rate, and many stories from employers who prefer to hire our graduates because of their preparedness for practice and strong work ethic.” Dean Mays added “over the past decade, we have had a profound impact on the legal profession’s diversity in Arizona. In 2004, the state bar’s diversity rate was 8% compared to the overall state population’s diversity rate of ~40%. In 2015, we had a graduate diversity rate of 31% compared with 15% for the state’s other schools.”
The legal profession has changed dramatically in recent years, but many law schools have not kept pace. Within this context, new leadership in legal education likely will emerge. Summit is building a school created not only to respond to, but lead, change and be recognized as an institution of true social utility.
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Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.