Troubled Law School Won't Be Holding Classes This Fall
The school isn't closing its doors completely, but they won't open this fall.
Through whatever academic happenstance or disaster, you’ve enrolled at the Arizona Summit Law School. Your law school is in big, big trouble, but you still really want to be a lawyer. You can’t transfer out (for any number of reasons), and you refuse to drop out. School is supposed to start in about a week, so like most law students, you begin to get ready for classes. Then, all of a sudden, your law school sends out late-night announcement that no classes will be held this fall. Well, that’s one way to find out that your law school is abandoning you.
Arizona Summit’s remaining law students found out at 11:27 p.m. on August 9 that the school would not be holding any classes during the Fall 2018 semester as it attempts to appeal the ABA’s decision to revoke its accreditation. The school isn’t closing (yet), but AZ Summit “will not be offering classes in the fall,” and “will not offer any scholarships going forward to any [Arizona Summit] students.”
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Within the email sent to students, Arizona Summit speaks of a teach-out plan with Arizona State, noting that while “ASU is currently evaluating [Arizona Summit] student records for acceptance of students as visitors,” “[t]here are no guarantees that all [Arizona Summit] students will be accepted as visitors.” Karen Sloan of Law.com has more information on that — information that wasn’t given to Arizona Summit students in the late-night email sent on August 9:
[T]he nearby Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law has agreed to accept Arizona Summit students who are within one semester of graduating as visitors this semester, said ASU assistant dean Thomas Williams. That arrangement will allow visiting students the ability to complete their legal studies and graduate with an Arizona Summit law degree, he said.
But ASU opted against admitting Arizona Summit students with fewer credits out of fear that they would be left high and dry if Arizona Summit closes shop. (Arizona Summit remains ABA accredited during the appeals process, and because a decision is not expected until October, it will be able to confer degrees in December even if its appeal is unsuccessful, according to Williams.)
It’s unclear how many current Arizona Summit students are within a semester of graduating ….
There are about 80 students left at Summit, so those who aren’t within one semester of graduating are going to have next to no options to finish their degrees unless both schools reach an agreement for a teach-out plan — which hasn’t happened yet (and if such an agreement can be reached, the plan wouldn’t begin until January). According to ASU Assistant Dean Thomas Williams, “Their students are clearly unhappy. They are unhappy with Summit, and some of them are unhappy with us because they think we should be solving this problem for them. We’ll see what happens.”
This is no way for Arizona Summit to treat its remaining students. Don’t prolong their suffering. Let them know whether the school is going to close its doors for good.
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(Flip to the next page to see the email that was sent to all Arizona Summit students.)
Law School Pulls Plug on Fall Classes Amid Accreditation Crisis [Law.com]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked 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.