Law Schools

Afraid It Will Lose ABA Accreditation, Law School Applies For Alternate Accreditation So Grads Can Take Bar Exam

They'd like you to believe this about the school's students and graduates -- not the money its investors will lose if the school can no longer operate.

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Whether it’s their admissions practices, their academic program, or their bar passage outcomes, some law schools struggle to keep up with the American Bar Assocition’s accreditation requirements. In recent months, rather than continuing its decades-long tradition of rubberstamping the (in)actions of poorly performing law schools, the ABA has proven its mettle as a regulator, even going so far as to strip a law school of its accreditation for the first time in history. Law schools that have been placed on probation or received letters informing them about their noncompliance with accreditation standards are now shaking in their student loan-backed boots.

That being the case, you may be wondering what’s going on behind the scenes at law schools where passing the bar exam isn’t a skill that many graduates seem to possess. One of those schools is the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where graduates passed the bar exam in the school’s home state of California at a a 35.09 percent rate in 2016, and a 26.49 percent rate in 2017. Last summer, TJSL was dead last for bar passage on the list of the dozens of ABA-accredited law schools in California. Thomas Jefferson’s bar pass rates look like those of California-accredited schools — they’re pretty bad, and yet those schools are somehow still in business.

Maybe that’s why Thomas Jefferson School of Law, afraid of losing its ABA accreditation, has applied in a very roundabout way to become a California-accredited law school. Graduates of California-accredited law schools may still take the bar exam in the state, while graduates of a law school without accreditation of any kind may not. You see, they’d like you to believe this is about the law school’s students and graduates — not the money the school’s investors will lose if it can no longer operate.

Here’s an excerpt from the agenda item on Thomas Jefferson Law’s request from the State Bar of California’s Committee of Bar Examiners:

In an abundance of caution, in order to prepare for the possibility that it may not retain ABA accreditation and approval, [Thomas Jefferson School of Law (TJSOL)] first seeks action by the Committee to confirm that the school is currently deemed accredited as a California Accredited Law School by virtue of its status as an ABA accredited law school. It further seeks waiver of the usual requirements and time limits associated with the provisional approval process, and instead requests to maintain California accreditation if its ABA accreditation should lapse but the school still substantially complies with all applicable Rules and Guidelines for Accredited Law Schools. This plan would allow TJSOL’s students to receive credit for their law study and those who graduate from the law school would be found eligible to take the California Bar Examination.

As luck would have it, the Committee seems to be taking the law school’s side. Here’s their recommendation, which is up for debate at an open meeting on Friday.

It is recommended that the Committee affirm that TJSOL is deemed accredited as a result of its ABA accreditation and approval status, and grant Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s application for California accreditation and acquiesce to the school’s non-J.D. LL.M., M.S.L. and J.S.D. programs based the current ABA acquiescence of those programs. It is also recommended that the Committee should find that if TJSOL’s ABA accreditation lapses, TJSOL’s California accreditation should continue so long as it agrees to undergo and pay for a full inspection to verify the school’s substantial compliance with the Rules and Guidelines for Accredited Law Schools within twelve months of the lapse. Such a course of action would strike a reasonable balance between protecting the students at TJSOL and holding TJSOL responsible for continued compliance with California accreditation standards.

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We’re going to have to beg to differ here as to what “protecting the students” means in Thomas Jefferson Law’s case. California-accredited law schools are not as stringently regulated as ABA-accredited law schools. Regardless of the fact that prospective TJSL students don’t seem to care about the school’s bar pass and employment outcomes, the ABA is now ready, willing, and able to shut down schools that take advantage of their students. Placing a school like TJSL into the hands of a different accreditor that will allow the school’s shenanigans to continue will not protect students.

According to Law School Transparency, the non-discounted cost of a law degree at TJSL right now is $280,493, while only 23.6 percent of recent graduates are working in full-time, long-term jobs where bar passage is required. Given the fact that so many California-accredited law schools exist that take students’ money for so little a chance of becoming lawyers, we’re simply not sure that the State Bar of California will be able to rein in the school. An accreditor like the ABA is needed here to crack down on schools that are doing a disservice to their students — schools like TJSL.

(Flip to the next page to see the Committee of Bar Examiners’s full recommendation on Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s accreditation request.)

Staci ZaretskyStaci 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.

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