Law Schools

Embattled Law School Is Opening Up A New Campus

The law school is growing.

By  
on

This semester, the law school responsible for the legal stylings of felon and former Trump Organization attorney, Michael Cohen, will be expanding its legal academia footprint into Kalamazoo, Michigan. Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School has gotten the go-ahead from the American Bar Association to open an additional campus where law students can take up to 60 credits (out of the 90 required for a J.D.).

The move to Kalamazoo isn’t a strange one, Back in 2014, Cooley Law School officially became affiliated with Western Michigan University, which has its headquarters there. As Western Michigan notes in its press release:

“This is a great opportunity for Western Michigan University students wishing to earn a law degree to remain in the Kalamazoo region,” said Nelson Miller, associate dean overseeing the affiliation between WMU-Cooley Law School and WMU. “Being able to offer law students the opportunity to earn up to 60 credits on WMU’s main campus has been one of the main goals of the law school’s affiliation with Western Michigan University.”

The ABA’s approval of the new law school campus comes amid ongoing litigation between Cooley and the ABA. Last year, the ABA made a finding that the law school was out of compliance with their accreditation standards, and in November of 2017, Cooley filed a lawsuit after the ABA’s noncompliance letter was made public. The ABA’s approval of the new campus was deferred until compliance was demonstrated, then in March, the ABA determined the law school had become compliant with the standards. But don’t think just because Cooley gets to open in Kalamazoo everything is hunky-dory between the two, as reported by the ABA Journal:

In his email, [James D. Robb, the law school’s associate dean of external affairs and general counsel] told the Journal that the accreditation and branch campus decisions by the council were based on the merits.

“But those decisions do not affect our litigation, which presents several claims under various legal theories,” Robb wrote. “One of those claims is that the ABA’s previous failure to permit us to open at Kalamazoo, without stated rationale and despite a highly positive site report by its own inspector that showed we met the requirements to establish that location, caused undue delay to the detriment of the school and students who would have benefited from studying at our Kalamazoo location.

Cooley isn’t the only law school salty at the ABA for its accreditation work. Three other law schools with notably bad academic criteria — Charlotte Law School, Arizona Summit, and Florida Coastal — have also sued the ABA over being found to be noncompliant with accreditation standards.

Sponsored

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. 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).

Sponsored

Topics

, , ,