Law Schools

What Would Thomas Jefferson Losing Its ABA Accreditation Mean For Students?

The embattled law school says current enrollees could still take bar exams outside of California.

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(Photo by Visitor7 via Creative Commons/Wikipedia)

Embattled Thomas Jefferson School of Law is working to assure its current students that they will still be able to take the bar exam outside of California even if the school loses its ABA accreditation due to its financial and academic issues.

This message was most recently conveyed in an email to students from the San Diego school’s dean, Linda Keller. She wrote that what prompted her message was incorrect information about Thomas Jefferson in a different news outlet.

“If a school loses accreditation, the next step is typically what’s called a teach-out,” Keller wrote in the Sept. 26 email. “This is a way for a school to ensure that its current students can finish their education and graduate. The ABA’s recently approved teach-out arrangements for other schools have provided that the law school keeps its ABA accreditation while it teaches out its current students. As a result, those teach-out students graduate with a degree from an ABA-approved law school and may sit for the bar exam in other jurisdictions.”

The ABA, which does not make public teach-out plans it approves, declined to comment on the scenario described by Keller.

Whether Thomas Jefferson would actually need a teach-out period if it lost ABA accreditation presents an interesting question.

In most other states, ABA accreditation is the only type available to a law school, so it makes sense when schools in those locations are given the opportunity for a teach-out.

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But California permits schools to receive accreditation from the State Bar, and the state also permits unaccredited schools to register with the bar.

Thomas Jefferson has already secured approval from the State Bar to be a California-accredited school if the ABA rejects the school’s pending appeal to remain accredited. The state accreditation would allow the law school’s graduates to take California’s difficult bar exam.

The ABA declined to comment on whether Thomas Jefferson be given a teach-out period if it loses its ABA accreditation.

Keller wrote in an email to Above the Law that the law school continues to pursue its ABA appeal, and she said a small number of Thomas Jefferson students take the bar exam in other states.

In 2018, 31 Thomas Jefferson graduates took the bar exam for the first time in 18 jurisdictions outside of California, according to a report the school filed with the ABA. Just 11 of those graduates passed, a 35.5 percent success rate, though that was better than the 23.9 percent who passed the California test in 2018.

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In the two prior years, roughly half of the 47 Thomas Jefferson students who took the bar exam in another state passed on their first attempt.

Meanwhile, two other ABA-accredited schools in California are already in the midst of teach-out processes, though neither is pursuing that route because they lost accreditation.

Western State College of Law in Irvine is teaching out current students while it awaits word of whether its different regulators, including the ABA, will sign off on a purchase by for-profit Westcliff University.

Westcliff, also based in Irvine, said the application for ABA approval of the ownership change is on the agenda for the November meeting of the ABA’s legal education council.

The WASC Senior College and University Commission has given interim approval of the transaction and full commission approval will be decided by the end of October, according to Westcliff.

There are 232 students currently at Western State, which became embattled because the parent company of Argosy University faced financial issues that left it in federal receivership.

Western State is not enrolling new students while it tries to finalize its sale to Westcliff, and the school has not sought State Bar of California accreditation.

Whittier Law School in Orange County is also undertaking a teach-out. The Costa Mesa-based school announced in spring 2017 it would be shutting down amid declining enrollment and poor bar exam results.

Interim Dean Rudy Hasl previously said he expected the teach-out and closure process would be complete by spring 2020.

Whittier graduates have been able to keep taking bar exams outside of California amid the teach-out, with nine students doing so in 2018. Just three of those first-time takers passed, though that success rate was far better than the 20.5 percent of first-time takers who passed California’s bar exam in 2018.

Lyle Moran is a freelance writer in San Diego who handles both journalism and content writing projects. He previously reported for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Diego Daily Transcript, Associated Press, and Lowell Sun. He can be reached at lmoransun@gmail.com and found on Twitter @lylemoran.

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