Law Schools

Yet Another Law School Is Going Out Of Business

This will be the first law school to close in 2018. How many will follow?

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Another law school is shutting down, and the building where classes are taught has reportedly already been sold.

Sources tell us that the Savannah Law School, a branch of Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School (a for-profit school), will be closing its doors. There’s just one condition: the school must remain open until the class of 2018 graduates. Current students will be “relocated” until graduation, but have no idea where.

Savannah will be the first law school to close in 2018, and the fourth law school to close or announce a wind down since 2017.

About 200 students are currently enrolled at Savannah Law, and about a dozen full-time faculty members are employed there — but not for long. Faculty were informed of the school’s impending closure yesterday afternoon at 3:30 p.m., and students were informed at 5:00 p.m. We’re hearing that there may be layoffs, and that the school will be doing a teach-out program. No additional students will be admitted, but the admissions page of the law school’s website hasn’t caught up with the news yet, as prospective students are still being solicited to apply for the Fall 2018 program.

UPDATE (10:00 a.m.): Shortly after publication, Savannah Law updated its website to state that “Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School’s branch campus in Savannah is not accepting applications for 2018.”

Where will Savannah Law’s remaining students be able to continue their legal educations? We presume that the administration of Atlanta’s John Marshall expects some or all first- and second-year students to transfer to that campus, but here’s a harsh reality check: these schools are about 250 miles apart. Some people likely chose Savannah Law because it was close to home, so not everyone will want to pick up their lives and move between three and four hours away.

Sources have speculated that Savannah Law was opened in the first place with the goal of using federal student loans as income to wait out the market before flipping on a prime piece of real estate. But perhaps Atlanta’s John Marshall should have been the one to close; after all, from bar passage rates to employment rates, graduate outcomes at Savannah have been consistently better than those produced by graduates of John Marshall. “For a small law school, we are so closely knit. Stellar faculty, stellar students. It’s just so heartbreaking,” said a third-year student.

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We reached out to Dean Malcolm L. Morris last night for comment on the school’s closure, but have yet to hear back. If and when we do, we will update this post.

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 discharges — 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 Savannah’s wake? Other law schools certainly hope so.

Savannah Law School closing [WTVM 9]
Savannah Law School to close after spring semester [Savannah Morning News]

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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, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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