Law Schools

Mediocre Law School Accepts Students Without Them Even Applying

Applications are overrated.

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This kind of sh*t never happens at Harvard Law.

I’m just saying, this isn’t the first time a law school has “accepted” students who actually had no interest in attending the school, but somehow the top tier of legal academia manages to avoid the unseemly mistake. This time, the unforced error comes from the depths of the “Rank Not Published” schools, at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.

We found out about this embarrassing gaffe when an Above the Law tipster got an email from Southwestern inviting them to an event at Southwestern promising an “insider’s perspective” to law school.

Our tipster was… perplexed by the invite, particularly when they noticed in the footer that the event was for admitted students:

As the tipster notes, they’d never even applied to the law school nor indicated any interest in the school at all:

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I applied to law school this cycle, but never so much as indicated any interest to Southwestern. I nevertheless received this first email, whose footer says, “You are receiving this email because you’ve been admitted to Southwestern Law School. Congrats!”

It’s unclear exactly how many non-applicants this email was inadvertently sent to, but the Dean of Admissions sent out an apology email for indicating that all recipients had been accepted to Southwestern Law. But don’t worry, they can still attend the prospective students event if they want:

Oh, and did you catch the awkward phrasing of the last sentence? Our eagle-eyed tipster did:

To make matters worse, the second email included the grammatically incorrect “…and do hope you will participate.” (Good thing law isn’t about keeping track of small details or anything…)

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Fifteen minutes later, a corrected email went out:

I’m sure email lists can be difficult to manage, but law schools need to be extra diligent. While it wasn’t the case with this tipster, what if they had applied to Southwestern and were incorrectly, backdoor told they got admitted? Finding out the truth could be devastating. Law schools, even RNP law schools, have dreams on the line — they should act with care.

UPDATE 5/29/18 7:39 p.m.: A spokesperson for Southwestern Law had the following statement about the incident:

Southwestern’s marketing team (through its chief officer, Hillary Kane) acknowledged that a footer designed for admitted students was indeed erroneously attached to last week’s email to prospective students.  She opined that it is encouraging that at least some future lawyers read all the way down instead of taking a #TLDR approach.

“To be honest, my team was mortified at the possibility we had provided misleading information to a future student. We are grateful to the admissions team who took immediate, good-faith, and reparative action. In light of the tongue and cheek tone of Ms. Rubino’s article, we find it best to avoid “engaging” and appearing defensive.  We only hope that no student, Harvard bound or otherwise, was actually hurt by our mistake.  We have taken immediate steps to make sure we don’t repeat this error.  I personally find it disappointing that a school that produces so many talented and successful practitioners must endure RNP US News rankings and unflattering monikers and categorizations. I am a proud graduate, adjunct professor, and executive officer at one of the most diverse and student-centered law schools in the country (my opinion).”

Hillary Kane ’93

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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