Law Schools

Indiana Tech Law School To Close, Citing $20 Million In Losses

Will other law schools close in its wake?

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law school closureIndiana Tech School of Law opened its doors in 2013, amid cries that the state had no need for another law school. In its first year, only 30 students enrolled, despite the school’s goal of an inaugural entering class of 100. After being denied accreditation in May 2015, the school was granted provisional accreditation by the American Bar Association in March 2016. Shortly thereafter, the 20 remaining students in the school’s charter class graduated, and 13 of them registered to take a bar exam. Only three of them were successful, for an overall passage rate of 23.1 percent. This fall, the school enrolled 55 students, its largest class ever.

Today, Indiana Tech Law School is announcing its closure.

At a meeting this afternoon, Indiana Tech University President Arthur Snyder is expected to tell faculty, staff, and students that the Board of Directors, citing $20 million in losses, voted unanimously to close the school at the conclusion of the academic year. Its final day in operation will be June 30, 2017.

Faculty members are understandably upset, as many of them “accepted their appointments at great professional risk,” according to Stone Mattheis Xenopoulos & Brew partner Christopher G. Mackaronis, who represents a faculty member who prefers to remain anonymous. Above the Law was provided with a statement regarding the law school’s impending closure, which reads in pertinent part:

[This] abrupt reversal throws into chaos the lives and academic plans of the student body, who chose to enroll, and remain, at the Law School during its formative years based on the unqualified commitment of the University – a commitment that was regularly communicated to them. Indeed, the decision to close the Law School comes just months after the arrival of the largest entering first-year class of approximately 50 students – a class the University targeted with its unqualified commitment, the centerpiece of its recruiting message. The Law School’s tuition is just under $20,000.

“You don’t have to be a lawyer to be repulsed by this outrageous bait and switch,” Mackaronis said. No, you certainly do not. Not only do faculty and staff members feel as though they’ve been given the runaround, but students have been left holding the short end of the stick. What are they to do now that they have only part of their degrees from a law school that’s on the verge of going out of business? In an email sent to Indiana Tech Law students a short time ago, University President Snyder said the following:

Our first concern during this difficult time is for our law students. We will be working hard on behalf of each of them to ensure that the process for transferring, for continuing their legal education, and ultimately earning their law degree takes place with as little disruption as possible.

Our faculty and staff colleagues at the law school are to be commended for the efforts they have put forth in working with our law students. Despite their many positive achievements, we are not experiencing or projecting enough of a corresponding increase in demand by prospective students for the law school to remain viable into the future.

I know that many of you will have questions related to this decision. To assist in answering them, I have attached a Q&A document with more details on the decision and the process going forward. I also encourage you to reach out to me with other questions you may have.

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Flip to the next page to see the three-page Q&A from President Snyder.

If these students would like to continue their legal education, they ought to look into seeing if any of their credits will be transferrable to another law school. If not, we implore them to immediately do some research on closed school loan discharge — you can trust in the fact that if there’s anything worse than having tens of thousands of dollars of law school debt hanging over your head, it’s having law school debt from a school that abandoned you in the middle of your education.

Will more law schools close in Indiana Tech’s wake? Other law schools certainly hope so. There’s a lesson to be learned here for students: If you continuously hear negative things about your school, perhaps it’s time to get out, before it’s too late.

Indiana Tech Law School to close next June; losses at $20 million [News-Sentinel]

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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.

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