For profit Charlotte School of Law has officially closed its doors, after years of accusations that its predatory model was harming students. The office of North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein confirmed that the school is closed, and its license to operate in the state has lapsed.

Charlotte Law was a for profit law school, struggling in a time when for profit institutions are under increasing scrutiny. Charlotte Law, along with Arizona Summit Law School and Florida Coastal School of Law are owned by the same company, InfiLaw.

Charlotte Law was on probation with the American Bar Association, and had been cut off from federal aid by the Obama Administration’s Department of Education. The school was also in hot water with the state of North Carolina. Accusations about Charlotte Law mostly focused on the fact that it wasn’t actually providing its students with what it promised. Less than one-fifth of students pass the bar exam, and many have had a difficult time securing legal jobs. According to required disclosures to the ABA, only 80 of the 340 graduates from 2016 have found permanent, full time jobs that require bar exam passage.

It’s unclear what will happen to students who were enrolled at the school, and the debt that many of them hold. Current students would be able to have their federal loans canceled. Anyone who withdrew from the school in the last four months can have their debt discharged, but not those who withdrew before that. AG Stein has written to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, asking that loan forgiveness be expanded for Charlotte Law students. Over 90 percent of Charlotte Law students have taken out federal loans.

Charlotte Law is the second law school to see its door shuttered this year. Whittier Law closed earlier this year, although with seemingly more warning and with more plans in place to deal with students that were already enrolled. Whittier was the first ABA accredited law school to shut down in more than 30 years.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Arizona Summit Law School is the latest institution in trouble with the American Bar Association (ABA) for low bar exam passage rates.

The ABA has placed the school–which has recently seen bar passage rates for first-time test takers fall to 25 percent–on probation. This is a significant drop from the school’s 2008 passage rate of 97 percent. The association also cited Summit’s admissions policies as a reason for the probation.

Summit Law School has until May 15 to develop a plan to improve its students’ test results in accordance with the ABA standards, which require that at least 75 percent of a law school’s graduates pass the bar within five years of graduation.

The ABA has been getting tough on law schools recently. Charlotte School of Law in North Carolina, which is owned by the same for-profit company that owns Summit, was placed on probation in November and lost its federal funding in February. In order for students to be eligible for loans from the government, their schools must be ABA-accredited. Charlotte landed in hot water with the association after admitting too many unqualified students who were unable to pass the bar or pursue careers in the field post-graduation.

In February, the association even considered tightening its standards for accredited schools. A proposed revision would have required 75 percent of graduates pass a bar exam within two years instead of five, but this proposal failed. Students and law school deans across the country challenged the idea of imposing stricter criteria, saying that it would limit diversity in schools and eventually the profession. Summit is especially cognizant of these concerns, as 43 percent of its students are minorities.

Last August, the ABA gave the Ave Maria School of Law in Florida a list of measures it would have to undertake to improve its school, and in November it publicly censured the Valparaiso School of Law in Indiana.

One explanation for the ABA’s crackdown on under-performing schools could be because it faces the possibility of losing its accreditation power. Last June, a Department of Education advisory committee suggested that the association’s authority to accredit schools be suspended for a year because of low student achievement.

Victoria Sheridan

Victoria is an editorial intern at Law Street. She is a senior journalism major and French minor at George Washington University. She’s also an editor at GW’s student newspaper, The Hatchet. In her free time, she is either traveling or planning her next trip abroad. Contact Victoria at VSheridan@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Despite criticism from law school deans across the country, the American Bar Association will meet on February 6 to discuss a proposal that would establish stricter bar passage requirements for school accreditation.

The proposal mandates that 75 percent of an accredited school’s graduates must pass the bar within two years of graduating. But deans have opposed the measure over concerns about California’s declining bar passage rate and diversity within the profession.

More than 90 deans signed a letter from the Association of American Law School’s Dean Steering Committee on January 13, asking for a year to review the proposal before the ABA’s House of Delegates considers it.

That period of time, they wrote, would allow them to understand how the measure might affect a school’s accreditation. In California, where the state bar passage rate has dropped from 56 percent to about 43 percent over the last three years, a handful of schools could lose their accreditations.

The letter notes:

The California bar results, if they become the ‘new normal’ for graduates of ABA-accredited law schools in California, could potentially imperil the accreditation of a very large number of law schools–law schools whose history and profile have demonstrated over many decades an ability to educate successful law students by any reasonable measure.

The letter also included concerns about diversity. More difficult standards could keep minority students–who, on average, score lower on the Law School Admission Test–from being admitted to schools if officials fear they won’t pass the bar.

Most of California’s law school deans, a handful of deans from law schools with connections to historically black universities, and the deans of Harvard and Yale law schools all signed the letter.

At the same time, the ABA risks losing its authority to accredit schools if it does not pay greater attention to student achievement. In June, the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity urged the Department of Education to suspend the association’s accreditation power for one year.

The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education voted to adopt the proposal’s requirement changes in October, but the proposal must still pass through the House of Delegates. If they approve the new rule next month, it will apply to graduates taking the bar exam this July, part of a broader Department of Education crackdown on accreditors.

In a January 19 statement, the council’s managing director Barry Currier said, “There is no reason to delay the effectiveness of this new standard,” which he said the council has been discussing and revising for several years. “The fact remains that to become a lawyer in a jurisdiction, a law school graduate must pass that jurisdiction’s bar exam. The standard that the council adopted holds schools to meeting graduates’ expectations in the jurisdictions where the school’s graduates choose to locate,” Currier said.

He added that the council would continue working with state supreme courts, bar examiners, deans, and diversity groups to ensure diversity and fair exams. He also said the new standard “is not at odds with any of those concerns and objectives.”

Victoria Sheridan

Victoria is an editorial intern at Law Street. She is a senior journalism major and French minor at George Washington University. She’s also an editor at GW’s student newspaper, The Hatchet. In her free time, she is either traveling or planning her next trip abroad. Contact Victoria at VSheridan@LawStreetMedia.com.

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It is finally seen as professional misconduct for men to make sexist remarks or call women “honey” and similar epithets when practicing law in court. Thanks to the American Bar Association’s (ABA) revisions to its ethics rules, sexism as well as comments or actions based on a person’s religion, race, sex, sexual orientation and other factors are no longer allowed.

Discrimination Against Women

Even though some states already have similar rules in place, there has been no formal, nationwide prohibition against such behavior. Therefore many male lawyers have felt free to use misogynistic language to undermine female opposing counsels, causing many female law practitioners to feel belittled and discriminated against.

Some of the women who spoke with the New York Times described how condescending male lawyers treated them when carrying out their profession. “Don’t raise your voice at me. It’s not becoming of a woman,” one man told lawyer Lori Rifkin when she objected to him interrupting her. “I got the pat on the head,” said Jenny Waters, now chief executive of the National Association of Women Lawyers, about working as a lawyer.

NAWL is a group that has supported the rights of female lawyers since 1899 and has over 5,000 members. They sent a letter to ABA to support the amendment to the ethics rule. And it worked–ABA presented the revised rule at its annual meeting in San Francisco on Tuesday. Any violations against it will result in either a fine or suspension from practice.

The Changes

The additions to the rule prevent discrimination based on sex, race, religion, and several other factors. They also detail what constitutes sexual harassment. The updated the ethics rule notes:

Discrimination and harassment by lawyers […] undermines confidence in the legal profession and the legal system. Such discrimination includes harmful verbal or physical conduct that manifests bias or prejudice towards others

The rule also describes that it applies during any activity that is related to the lawyer’s practicing of law. This includes when:

Representing clients; interacting with witnesses, coworkers, court personnel, lawyers and others while engaged in the practice of law; operating or managing a law firm or law practice; and participating in bar association, business or social activities in connection with the practice of law.

This part of the rule caused critics to say that the new rules could lead to limitations on free speech while working with clients, but so far no lawyers have objected to the adoption of the revisions. Further revisions were made before approving the rule to make sure it is only offensive conduct if the person doing it “knows or reasonably should know [it] is harassment or discrimination.”

Only 36 percent of law practitioners are women, according to the American Bar Association, and they still make about $1,400 less than men per month. But at least this new rule is more than welcome as a step forward in the fight for gender equality.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School is under investigation by the American Bar Association (ABA) for possible discriminatory practices. There are concerns that the law school discriminates against students who are LGBTQ, or who begin their career at the school as Mormons, and then change their faith. A student group called FreeBYU has brought these concerns to the ABA, officials from the organization are now reviewing the complaint.

BYU Law requires its students to sign a strict honor code, which forbids homosexual relationships. Additionally, it bars students from leaving the Mormon faith before graduation, although non-Mormons are allowed to admitted to the school from the get-go as long as they pay a higher tuition rate. If students break the honor code, they could be kept from completing their degrees. The members of FreeBYU are claiming that these actions violate the ABA’s nondiscrimination guidelines.

A petition asking to “Restore Religious Freedom at BYU” that focuses particularly on the treatment of students who have left the Mormon church has garnered almost 3000 signatures, and points out that students who left the Mormon faith while enrolled used to be allowed to continue on as students, as long as they paid the higher tuition rate levied on non-Mormons. According to FreeBYU, that law was changed in 1993.

Exactly what rules a private law school–particularly one that is religiously affiliated–has to follow are difficult to untangle. But as Annie Knox, of the Salt Lake Tribune explains:

Religious institutions such as BYU have some leeway in tailoring their admissions and hiring processes to indicate a ‘preference’ for people with a certain religious affiliation, according to the most recent ABA guidelines, so long as the preferences are clear before students and faculty come to campus. But the standards may not be used to limit academic freedom or to discriminate when it comes to admission or retention of students. The professional organization of attorneys and law students forbids schools from ‘taking action’ based on race, religion, gender, nationality, sexuality, age or disability.

Spokespeople from BYU have acknowledged that the school was asked to provide information to the ABA after a request was made a few months ago, and that the school is confident it will retain its accreditation. But at this point, that decision will be left in the ABA’s hands–if the organization believes that BYU Law has indeed acted incorrectly, an investigator may be sent to the school and the question could end up in front of an accrediting committee.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Beaches, sun, internships, and vacations; these are some of the highlights associated with Summer. That’s not the case though for thousands of 19 and 20 year olds frantically preparing for arguably one of the most overrated exams looming in the second week of June: the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). By now, every college sophomore and junior has probably heard that getting into law school  is “easier” than ever due to the decline in the applicant pool. Is it really though? Moreover, what does this notion entail once graduating seniors actually commit to their respective law schools? It seems that what used to be a competitive challenge for those truly passionate about law and policy has become an option for the thousands of students wanting to avoid “funemployment” and who are unsure of their post-graduation plans.

Millennials are being victimized by the fallacy that a law degree from a middle-top tier institution will provide stable employment upon graduation. Many refer to the phenomenon of the smallest applicant pool in 30 years as a “buyers market,”  wherein students are sold the idea that applying to law school now is a good idea because they will have a higher chance of attending a top Law School, thus potentially being scouted by a top law firm and earning a six-figure starting salary. Although this sounds very appealing, the “buyers market” leaves out a minor detail–law firms are placing little emphasis on the small applicant pools given the excess law graduates from years past and job demand finally stabilizing.  

Last year saw the smallest class of incoming law students at 38,000–a 37 percent decline from 2010. There is no denying that the smaller applicant pool and decreased percentage of high-test scorers contributes to the evidence that admission into tougher law schools is in fact a more viable option.  Furthermore, these numbers indeed provide an incentive for thousands of students who, prior to the applicant decline, would never have considered taking the LSAT. The formerly serious and competitive reputation of the LSAT, wherein students would prepare months in advance for the arduous five-hour assessment, has become arguably as common as taking the SAT.  The increase in under-prepared students taking the exam is shown by studies conducted on the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) data. Statistics disclose that the number of applicants with higher LSAT scores (above 170) has declined exponentially more than the number of applicants with lower scores, advocating that some students with high LSAT scores do not apply to law school at all while students with lower scores continue to apply.

Moreover, statistics demonstrate that companies are not hiring more lawyers than they were in 2010. Top law firms not only continue to scout and favor aspiring attorneys from top-ten schools, but now have the luxury of choosing from a much wider pool of applicants than just students who have just graduated.

According to the American Bar Association,  in 2013 only 57 percent of all law school graduates found full-time work, meaning the job lasted one year or more and was either a clerkship or mandated bar passage. It is important to note that 4,714 of the jobs reported were in fields that technically did not require law degrees, but rather employers preferred to hire Juris Doctorates (i.e. congressional staffers, labor organizers, or NGO workers etc). An additional 1,724 jobs were completely unrelated to law.

The employment numbers are not expected to differ much for the Class of 2016. There are 36,000 students predicted to graduate in 2016, as opposed to 46,776 in 2013. The ABA further projects that there will be 19,650 jobs available for those graduates. While these numbers convey that fewer people will graduate unemployed, the previously mentioned values do not take into account individual student qualifications and readiness, which prominent law firms rely heavily on before offering employment.

So while at face value the numerical indicators provide an optimistic view for undergraduate students banking on attending a higher-ranked law school, confounding variables such as fierce competition among peers and lack of preparedness factor into the discussion. As Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent puts it:

Most people should not attend law school. Specifically, you shouldn’t attend law school unless: a) you have an overwhelming compulsion to actually become a lawyer and b) you understand exactly what becoming a lawyer entails.

Although not the worst time to apply to law school, do your homework. Completely disregarding the average $122,158 debt law students graduate with–because that is an entirely different topic on its own–undergraduates who are not 100 percent convinced about law and policy might want to think twice about applying to law school. What momentarily may seem like a fantastic educational opportunity to attend a slightly better law school than what would’ve been the case a few years ago could end up being a curse in disguise; a detrimental and slipshod attempt at a legal career.

Symon Rowlands

Symon Rowlands is a member of the University of Miami Class of 2016 and was a Law Street Media Fellow during the Summer of 2015. Symon now blogs for Law Street, focusing mostly on politics. Contact Symon at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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About four times a year, students across the country nervously sit for what could be the most important four hours of their lives up until that point. Sure, they’re prepared, but nothing can shake the inevitable nervous feelings that ensue on test day. That nerve-wracking test I’m talking about is the LSAT–the admissions exam for law schools in the United States. Law schools sift through thousands of applications every year. When initially considering an applicant, they mainly look at two things: their undergraduate GPA, and their LSAT score. But what if I were to tell you that one of those criteria was no longer considered?

Well if you were to apply to the State University of New York-Buffalo Law School or the University of Iowa College of Law, that would be the case. Both of these schools have decided to admit students who have not taken the LSAT. Instead, they have stated that they will admit some students based on their undergraduate GPAs and their scores on other standardized tests.

These are just the first two schools to implement such policies, taking advantage of a new ruling by the American Bar Association that now permits law schools to fill up to 10 percent of their law school classes with students who have not taken the LSAT. So long as that student has a strong GPA and strong additional standardized test scores, they can be admitted.

If you’re anything like I am, you’re probably asking yourself “what other standardized test could they possibly use?” Well, believe it or not, these schools will be considering ACT and SAT scores from at least four years earlier for undergraduate admissions. They will also be considering things such as the GRE, GMAT, or college aptitude tests.

The aim of this new policy is to combat declining law school enrollment. These schools believe that if potential applicants do not have to worry about preparing and paying for an additional exam, then they will be more likely to apply. James Gardner, the dean of SUNY Buffalo’s law school, stated that “taking the LSAT is a pain, and it is expensive.” Everyone who takes the test must pay a $170 fee, and that doesn’t take into account the steep costs of tutoring or an LSAT preparation course. According to Gardner, “this is just a way to identify strong-performing students based on perfectly rational criteria that don’t involve the LSAT.”

While this may sound like a great leveler, think about what it actually means. If law schools start to use college admissions exams, like the SAT, for law school admissions, it will only make sure those same obstacles come four years sooner. If a high school student has some sort of inclination that they want to go to law school after college, they have the added pressure of doing well on the SAT for that purpose, four years too soon. I always knew I wanted to go to law school, and let me tell you, I would not have been too excited to find out that my SAT scores counted not only for college, but for law school as well.

The unique thing about the LSAT is that it is a good indicator of how well students will perform in law school. Research shows that LSAT scores are a good predictor of not only how well students will perform in their first year of law school, but also how likely a student is to pass the bar exam. It’s unlikely that law schools will be able to discern the same things about applicants from other standardized tests.

Sure, this new policy may draw some people in that may have been deterred from considering law school if they needed to take the LSAT, diversifying the applicant pool. However, if we consider the research, don’t we want to have some indication that students will succeed in law school before investing three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in a legal education? Isn’t that the whole point of the LSAT?

While some law schools no longer require all students to take the LSAT for admissions, I for one, will still be one of those nervous students sitting for my exam come June.

Brittany Alzfan

Brittany Alzfan is a student at the George Washington University majoring in Criminal Justice. She was a member of Law Street’s founding Law School Rankings team during the summer of 2014. Contact Brittany at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On February 12, 2015, Hamline University School of Law and William Mitchell College of Law signed an agreement that will merge them into one law school. The newly formed Minnesota school will be known as Mitchell | Hamline School of Law, and will be situated at William Mitchell’s Saint Paul campus. Both of these law schools will continue to operate separately until the merger is approved by the American Bar Association.

The merged law school will be staffed by faculty from both William Mitchell Law and Hamline law, and will encompass programs from both as well. The new combined law school will provide students with several programs to get their J.D., including full-time and part-time programs, as well as online and weekend options. William Mitchell actually just launched an innovative new online legal education program, so it seems they will be continuing that program under the new banner. According to William Mitchell Dean Eric Janus, these negotiations have been in the works for months.

According to the Dean of Hamline’s Law School, Jean Holloway, the two schools are combining because their missions are a good fit and the merger will help students gain a stronger legal education. She said, “certainly given the legal education market we can do it better than we can do it alone.”

In their joint statement, the schools announced that the president and dean of the new law school will be Mark C. Gordon, the newly appointed dean of William Mitchell. As of now, it’s unclear what role, if any, current Hamline Law School Dean Jean Halloway will have at the school once the merger is complete.

The impending merger will also have significant effects on the staffs of both of these schools. Officials report that cuts are going to need to be made to accomidate the merger, however, they hope that most of these will be voluntary.

However, one has to wonder if this merger has anything to do with the drastic decline in law school applicants over the recent years. According to the American Bar Association, law school enrollment in the United States is down nearly 30 percent from its peak in 2010, and is lower than it has been since 1973. The American Bar Association has also reported that Hamline’s 2014 entering class was only 90 students, making it one of just 25 law schools in the country to have an incoming class with fewer than 100 students.

In addition to the overall drop in law school applicants, the schools’ locations make it difficult to keep enrollment up. There are four law schools–University of St. Thomas Law, University of Minnesota Law, Hamline Law, and William Mitchell Law–all located in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota. With this much competition in one small region, it’s likely that all four of these schools have suffered. While, according to the president of the Minnesota State Bar Association, Richard Kyle, this merger is a “bold move,” it is one that makes sense given the high number of law schools in the Twin Cities.

It will be interesting to see the effects of the merger play out. Even with reduced competition in the region now, Mitchell | Hamline Law will still have an uphill battle in terms of enrollment. It will likely take the new school years to establish the reputation that will allow it to attract top students from across the country.

Brittany Alzfan

Brittany Alzfan is a student at the George Washington University majoring in Criminal Justice. She was a member of Law Street’s founding Law School Rankings team during the summer of 2014. Contact Brittany at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Hamline Law and William Mitchell Law Announce Plans for a Merger appeared first on Law Street.

In September of 2013, the American Bar Association Task Force on the Future of Legal Education called on law schools to embrace technology as a useful tool for educating future attorneys. Finally, someone has responded to that call. Just this month, William Mitchell College of Law launched a new and unique legal education experiment combining traditional classroom learning with online courses.

In December of 2013, school officials met with the ABA Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar to request a variance from ABA accreditation standards, which state that no more than one-third of an accredited law school institution’s curriculum can take place outside of the traditional classroom setting. A variance was granted to the William Mitchell program, which it allows it to be more flexible and focus more on an online portion.

Under the terms of the variance set by the ABA, the school will be allowed to admit four entering classes of students to this hybrid program, and each class size must be limited to 96 students. Additionally, the school must provide detailed reports to the council that include information pertaining to applications, admissions, attrition, course evaluations, and skills training.

The ABA’s managing director of accreditation and legal education, Barry Currier, considered several factors before granting the variance to William Mitchell. These factors include the school’s 113-year history and its vast experience with part-time law students. According to Currier, the school’s application for the variance was detailed and well thought-out. It was clear to him that the school was determined to making this program succeed.

Currier stated that:

It’s fair to say that this is most substantial variance that’s been granted, and it’s not an exclusive agreement between the ABA and William Mitchell. Any school that submits a variance application as carefully thought out and researched, and demonstrates this level of commitment will get a serious listen from the council.

He encourages other schools to develop their own innovative programs as well-thought out as this one.

The program welcomed 85 students, who have an average age of 38, for its first year of operation. According to the law school’s press release, over one-third of the students already have graduate degrees in other fields. These students will participate in a four-year part-time JD degree program that requires approximately one to two weeks of classroom attendance per semester at the law school’s brick-and-mortar campus located in St. Paul, Minnesota. The rest of the time, students will take their law school courses online. Annual tuition will be $27,770, which is the same as the cost of the school’s traditional part-time program.

This unique program will give people who may not have have the time to travel and sit in class all day the opportunity to earn their law degree in a more convenient way. One of the students in this new hybrid program, 59-year-old Brian Kennedy, jumped at the opportunity to be a part of this program. He told Star Tribune,  “I was accepted to William Mitchell in 1981 and life got in the way.” After being sidetracked by an entertainment-industry career, he regretted not going to law school. Now, he’s looking forward to his second chance. He said, “I’m starting a new career. It just took me a while to get here.”

Others, like 41-year-old Vershawn Young, plan to keep their current carreers while attending law school. Young is a communications professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, and said that he chose William Marshall because it was the only law school option that would allow him to keep his current job. He expects that the program will allow him “to experience something phenomenal.” It sounds like he’s probably right–the flexibility that this hybrid program allows is one of it’s truly unique aspects, and it is one that will likely lead to the program’s success.

Brittany Alzfan

Brittany Alzfan is a student at the George Washington University majoring in Criminal Justice. She was a member of Law Street’s founding Law School Rankings team during the summer of 2014. Contact Brittany at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Every year, eager, bright-eyed students enter law school with the hopes that in about three years time, they’ll be able to call themselves lawyers. Going to law school seems like a natural and crucial step for anyone that hopes to have success in the legal field. However, this was not the path that Marcos Camacho took–he became a lawyer in 1986 without taking a single law school course.

Camacho earned entry to the bar in California, one of the only states that allows students to “read law” and study as an apprentice under a veteran attorney. The program is called the Law Office Study Program, which is a three-year program run by the State Bar of California. At its core, the program involves a great deal of reading and self-teaching. In addition, students gain valuable hands-on experience as paralegals working on real cases. Rather than sitting in class every day and taking exams, students in this program learn the law through practice. While this concept may seem unconventional, it is actually very similar to the way that Abraham Lincoln became a lawyer.

Now, I’m sure that many of you are thinking the same thing right now, “a way to become a lawyer without paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for law school tuition? Sign me up!” However, it’s not that simple. This type of program requires extremely self-motivated individuals, because at the end of the day, you need to pass the bar exam whether you went to law school or not. There are no exams or deadlines–there is nothing to keep you on track or reinforce the material you are reading.

Camacho had the self-motivation to make the most out of this program, and passed the California bar exam on his first try. In 2002, he went on to become general counsel for the United Farm Workers Union, which at the time was headed by the late Cesar Chavez. Then in 2009, Camacho went into private practice in Bakersfield.

Just this past Christmas Eve, California Governor Jerry Brown called Camacho to inform him that he had been appointed to a judgeship on the Kern County Superior Court. Camacho considers this appointment to be a “tremendous honor,” and stated that he was “floored” when the governor called him and said that he had been appointed. According to the newly-appointed judge, he considered applying for a judgeship back in 2011 but decided against it when his wife of 20 years, Eva, was diagnosed with cancer. Unfortunately, Eva, who Camacho considered to be his biggest supporter, passed away the following year.

So while “reading law” worked for Camacho, how practical is this path? Are we likely to see people today foregoing law school and still becoming successful? At the moment, the only states to even offer such programs are Virginia, Vermont, Washington, and California. New York, Maine, and Wyoming offer programs that combine apprenticeships with law school. This is one of the several reasons that this path remains underpopulated. According to the National Conference of Bar Examiners, only 60 of the 83,986 people who took state or multi-state bar exams last year were law office readers.

In addition, finding someone that is willing to take responsibility for educating a new lawyer is no easy task. A major obstacle in choosing this path is that none of the states that offer this program provide any guidance or resources to help prospective law readers locate a supervising laywer that is willing to take someone on for an apprenticeship. All of the work must be done by the prospective student.

Additionally, bar passage rates for law readers are poor. Only 17 law readers passed last year, or 28 percent of the law readers that took the exam. When compared to the 73 percent of students that passed after graduating from institutions recognized by the American Bar Association, that does not scream success. Robert E. Glenn, who is the president of the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners describes these programs as “a cruel hoax.” He said of apprenticeships–“it’s such a waste of time for someone to spend three years in this program but not have anything at the end.”

However, there are upsides to these “law reader” programs. The first, and most obvious, is the lack of debt for students. While many law schools are making efforts to lower their tuition, law school is still a huge investment. Many today are questioning the value of a three-year legal education when considering the cost. An apprenticeship is an alternative that makes a legal education affordable and available to a more diverse population, which could be beneficial to underserved communities.

Without loans to pay back, lawyers won’t have to chase positions in big-name firms with big paychecks. Instead, they could focus on working in nonprofit, environmental, and community law. According to Janelle Orsi, the co-founder of the Sustainable Economies Law Center in California, “attorneys trained in this way will be able to be average people.”

While this may be appealing to some, it is not for everyone. Considering how competitive the legal field is today, passing the bar and securing a job at a top law firm seem to be on the forefronts of most future-lawyer’s minds. As a result, it is unlikely that we will see a rise in “legal readers” anytime soon.

Brittany Alzfan

Brittany Alzfan is a student at the George Washington University majoring in Criminal Justice. She was a member of Law Street’s founding Law School Rankings team during the summer of 2014. Contact Brittany at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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It can be a very traumatic experience suffering from a personal injury, whether it be from a trip and fall, automobile accident, or otherwise. As someone who has suffered injuries, you want an attorney who will be on your side and fight for you. As in any profession, there are those professionals who are ethical, and those who might fall short of that. As a client, it is important to know what side of the spectrum your attorney falls on, in order to see whether you really are in the best hands.

Attorneys must abide by the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. These model rules are meant to keep attorneys in check, and hold the profession to a high ethical standard. If they fail to abide by the rules they could run the risk of some sort of penalty, or in the worst-case scenario, disbarment. As a Personal Injury client, you should be aware of some of the basic model rules in order to determine if your attorney is really the best fit for you.

Rule 1.4 Communication

Under this rule, lawyers must promptly inform their clients of material developments in the matter including settlements or plea offers, reasonably consult with the client about the means by which the client’s objectives are being accomplished, and keep the client reasonably informed about the status of the matter.

For you, this means that your attorney should be keeping you in the loop. Many times clients want to seek an update on their lawsuit and the attorney should be calling the client back promptly and updating them on a regular basis. Realistically, that is not to say that the attorney should be calling the client every day to report to them, since it is most likely that the attorney has other cases to work on as well. However, if the client feels that they haven’t been updated in a significant period of time, and have not had calls returned to them, they should consider taking their lawsuit elsewhere.

Rule 1.7 Conflict of Interest

Under this rule, a lawyer cannot represent a client if the representation involves a concurrent conflict of interest. That is, if an attorney represents Client A and Client B, if the representation of either client will be directly adverse to the other client, then there is a conflict of interest.

If an injured client is in an automobile accident, and the attorney is representing both drivers of each respective car, that is absolutely a conflict of interest. Clients should be aware of this rule, as it might not be as obvious of a conflict, like the situation with the automobile accident. If the client feels that an attorney’s representation of another client is directly adverse to their case, they should bring it to the attorney’s attention.

Rule 4.2 Communication with Person Represented by Counsel

Under this rule, an attorney cannot communicate with an individual whom he knows to be represented by counsel, unless counsel gives permission or unless there is a court order.

As a client, if an attorney who is not the attorney representing your case tries to contact you, it is important to notify your attorney right away to see what is going on. The client should not give any information to other attorneys except their own, as those individuals probably do not have the best interests for you.

Although these are just three rules of many under the ABA Rules of Professional Conduct, a client should be aware that they deserve ethical representation by their attorney. Although it is ideal to think that all attorneys are ethical, the sad truth is that not all are.  As a client, if something doesn’t feel right about your representation, you should address it.

Melissa Klafter

Melissa Klafter has a JD from St. John’s University School of Law and plans to pursue a career in Personal Injury Law. You can find her binge-watching her favorite TV shows, rooting for the Wisconsin Badgers, and playing with her kitty, Phoebe. Contact Melissa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Charleston Law School has had a tough few years. It was established in 2003–right when that big law school boom was starting– and its first class graduated in 2007. The school began as a way to fill a gap in legal education that existed in Charleston; despite the fact that it’s the second largest city in South Carolina, there was not a law school there when Charleston Law began operating.

In 2013, the school began dealing with a company called InfiLaw, which eventually purchased the school pending approval by the American Bar Association (ABA) and South Carolina’s commission on higher education.

InfiLaw is part of Sterling Enterprises, a private equity company from Chicago, and it operates for-profit law schools. Currently there are three in InfiLaw’s collection–Florida Coastal School of Law, Arizona Summit Law School, and the Charlotte School of Law. Charleston Law would be the fourth. The company’s reputation within the law school field isn’t particularly stellar. There are concerns that InfiLaw is a scam, and predatory–after all, it takes students who can’t get into other law schools, puts them into massive debt, and then those students have a very difficult time finding jobs that can pay off said debt. In an in-depth piece on for-profit law schools that focused heavily on InfiLaw, the Atlantic attempted to pinpoint the company’s motivation:

A Florida Coastal faculty member who is familiar with the business strategies of private-equity firms told me that, in his view, the entire InfiLaw venture was quite possibly based on a very-short-term investment perspective: the idea was to make as much money as the company could as fast as possible, and then dump the whole operation onto someone else when managing it became less profitable.

Regardless of whether or not those are actually InfiLaw’s practices, actually taking over Charleston Law could lead to serious changes at the school.

That’s where this all gets very, very messy. Those two entities that have to approve the sale–the ABA, and the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education (CHE)–have a few different moving parts. It’s a confusing mess, but essentially what’s happened is that one committee of the ABA, the accreditation committee, has approved the sale; however, another part that needs to give its approval, the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, has deferred making a decision. They’re waiting on the CHE, who have their own set of problems with which to contend.

Now CHE is caught in the middle. One of Charleston Law’s founders, a man named Ed Westbrook, doesn’t want the school sold to InfiLaw. He’s in the minority, as the other two founders want to see it go to InfiLaw. Westbrook claims that he can successfully operate it as a non-profit, without taking any money from the state. He’s made vague statements about using his own money to do so. Now, both Westbrook and his lawyers, and InfiLaw and its lawyers are reaching out to the CHE with conflicting proposals and information. Westbrook’s optimism is admirable, I guess, but Charleston Law as it stands seems a bit like a sinking ship. For example, the school’s new President, Maryann Jones stepped down in November. She lasted in the job for a grand total of eight days. Her reasoning was described in an email she sent when she resigned:

The level of vitriol, with all sides making me a lightning rod for an unfortunate situation that was not of my making, makes this truly a situation that I am unwilling at this stage of my life to undertake.

Back to the CHE approval though, which appears to be the lynchpin to this deal. Want to be even more confused? There are 15 seats on the CHE. Four are vacant, and eight are being held by people whose terms have technically expired. Governor Nicki Haley is trying to fill those seats–but that would be in January at the earliest.

So, will InfiLaw succeed in its takeover of the Charleston School of Law? I have absolutely no clue. This tangled web of players, committees, and arguments is a mess–perhaps symbolic of the messy relationship between the ABA, for-profit law schools, and students. Whatever happens, it’s now in the CHE’s hands…and I for one do not envy them.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Conflicts of interest are a tough field for law firms and individual lawyers to navigate. In order to help with these tricky situations, the American Bar Association has created a set of guidelines to prevent conflicts of interest. But whether or not they’re effective and prudent is a constant topic of argument. Read on to learn about the ABA’s rules, and the arguments for and against them.

What is a conflict of interest?

A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or firm represents multiple clients whose goals or requests conflict with one another. For example, a conflict of interest would occur if a law firm represented both a company and an individual suing that company.

What are the ABA’s rules about conflict of interest?

The ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.7 states:

(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b), a lawyer shall not represent a client if the representation involves a concurrent conflict of interest. A concurrent conflict of interest exists if:

(1) the representation of one client will be directly adverse to another client; or

(2) there is a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by the lawyer’s responsibilities to another client, a former client or a third person or by a personal interest of the lawyer.

(b) Notwithstanding the existence of a concurrent conflict of interest under paragraph (a), a lawyer may represent a client if:

(1) the lawyer reasonably believes that the lawyer will be able to provide competent and diligent representation to each affected client;

(2) the representation is not prohibited by law;

(3) the representation does not involve the assertion of a claim by one client against another client represented by the lawyer in the same litigation or other proceeding before a tribunal; and

(4) each affected client gives informed consent, confirmed in writing.

Simplified, this rule prohibits lawyers from representing the interests of anyone whose interests are directly against any of his or her current clients, or taking on any representation that creates a meaningful chance that representing the new client will significantly lower the lawyer’s ability to help the current client.

However, there are exceptions within this rule.  A lawyer can accept the representation if he reasonably believes that he can provide “competent and diligent” services to each affected client, the representation is not otherwise illegal, the lawyer isn’t representing two clients against each other in the same suit and each affected client gives informed, written consent.

Ideas about conflict of interest don’t just include a given lawyer’s particular firm, but also the relationships that they have with other lawyers, family members, and the like. In essence, any way that they can be influenced by conflicting parties can raise conflict of interest concerns.

What are the reasons to support these rules?

Proponents of the sufficiency of ABA conflict of interest rules base their arguments on the comments to Rule 1.7. Prohibiting the representation of directly adverse clients (even if the lawyer is representing them in unrelated cases) is proper for multiple reasons. The client against whom the adverse representation is undertaken may feel betrayed and that feeling of betrayal may interfere with the lawyer’s ability to effectively represent the client’s interests. Also, the client who is receiving the adverse representation may be concerned that the lawyer is not zealously performing the representation out of loyalty to the first client. The import of these fears is magnified if the lawyer is forced to cross-examine his client in an unrelated case. This can cause severe distrust and animosity between the lawyer and the client.

What are the reasons to disagree with the ABA rules?

Opponents of the sufficiency of ABA conflict rules argue that if the clients’ opposing interests are purely economic such as if a lawyer is representing two competing corporations in unrelated cases, then consent may not be required. This situation allows lawyers to represent corporations that are indirectly adverse against each other. Serving a corporate client’s interests that are indirectly adverse to another corporate client can still be harmful to the latter corporate client. This means that a lawyer can conceivably charge money to a client that she is indirectly harming.

Case Study: Covington & Burlington, LLP and 3M

A judge ruled in 2012 that Minnesota law firm Covington & Burlington LLP couldn’t represent the state in a suit against manufacturing conglomerate 3M because it had previously represented 3M itself. The suit involved chemicals used by 3M that were dumped into landfills in the area, and then caused health problems in approximately 60,000 residents. Despite the fact that Covington traditionally represented the state when it came to environmental issues, the judge ruled it a conflict of interest because Covington had previously represented 3M in arguments involving those exact same chemicals.

Conclusion

Conflicts of interest are difficult to navigate, even for the most professional lawyers. The ABA has attempted to create guidelines to avoid conflicts of interest. While the guidelines receive some negative feedback, they are in place for a reason and most likely will not be going away anytime soon.

Resources

Primary

ABA: Rule 1.7

ABA: Comment on Rule 1.7

ABA: How to Avoid Conflicts

Additional

JD Journal: Covington & Burling LLP Not Permitted to Represent Minnesota in 3M Case

JD Journal: Model Rules of Professional Conduct: Preamble & Scope

American Bar: Conflict-Checking Systems: Three Great (and Cheap) Ways to Effectively Manage Conflict Checking

American Bar: Client Rapport and Ethical Considerations

Tech Crunch: Judge Allows Quin Emanuel To Continue Representing Snapchat in Lawsuit

ABA Journal: Model rule change aims to help lawyers confronting conflicts issues involving multiple jurisdictions

ABA Journal: Model Rule Change Recognizes Need for Conflicts Checks Before Lawyers Move, Law Firms Merge

Elliot Schissel Law Blog: What Does the ABA’s adoption of New Conflicts Rules Mean for New York?

St. Louis University Law Journal: Using the Concept of ‘A Philosophy of Lawyering’ in Teaching Professional Responsibility

TLIE: ABA Approves Changes in Model Rules

ID Journal: O.J. Simpson Returns to Court

American Legal Ethics Library: End-of-Life Notice

Attorneys Advantage: Do You Represent Multiple Clients in the Same Matter?

Massachusetts: SIDEWAYS: Lateral Hires and Conflicts of Interest

John Gomis

John Gomis earned a Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in June 2014 and lives in New York City. Contact John at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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At a time when law school enrollment is down across the country, it seems like it would be very difficult to open a new law school; however, the University of California-Irvine wasn’t deterred by this when it opened its own law school in 2009. This month, the University of California, Irvine School of Law received full accreditation from the American Bar Association.

The school has already accomplished much more than simply earning its accreditation. UC Irvine Law’s enrollment has increased every year since its opening, despite the nationwide decrease in demand for law school. The school has also been ranked third in student placement in prestigious judicial clerkships, behind only Yale and Stanford. In addition, the school placed seventh in Scholarly Impact, a rankings system that measures the impact professors have on the law field.

To get perspective on UC Irvine Law’s success, I talked with the Dean of the Law School, Erwin Chemerinsky. As far as seeking accreditation went, Chemerinsky says the standards that needed to be met were made clear and the school was careful to meet all requirements. But Chemerinsky stressed, “Accreditation is the minimum required, we want to go far beyond that in creating an outstanding law school.”

According to Chemerinsky, the goal from the beginning was to be a top law school, and that mentality has driven its success. When asked how UC Irvine Law is growing while so many law schools are losing students, Chemerinsky stressed that the school’s success is due to the outstanding faculty and students they have recruited, adding, “I believe that we have created a very special law school. In part, it is different and special because of our commitment to experiential learning.“

The experimental learning that UC Irvine Law is known for includes an innovative docket of classes, along with a requirement that all students participate in a clinical program. In clinics, students represent clients under faculty supervision.

UC Irvine Law has entered a saturated market and thrived. There are currently more law school seats nationwide than students to fill them, which has led to falling enrollment and some lower prices. Despite this, UC Irvine Law has attracted more students every year. Some industry experts predict it will be a top 20 law school in next year’s US News & World Report rankings. UC Irvine Law’s success presents a possible alternative to lowering prices for struggling law schools. The school has shown that no matter what shape the market is in, if you offer a unique and valuable product, people will buy it. UC Irvine Law offers its  unique product by aggregating great faculty and providing innovative curriculum. In this current law school market, schools must lower prices or offer a better product.  UC Irvine Law shows schools exactly what that superior product should look like.

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Matt DeWilde (@matt_dewilde25) is a member of the American University class of 2016 majoring in politics and considering going to law school. He loves writing about politics, reading, watching Netflix, and long walks on the beach. Contact Matt at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Mathieu Marquer via Flickr]

Matt DeWilde

Matt DeWilde is a member of the American University class of 2016 majoring in politics and considering going to law school. He loves writing about politics, reading, watching Netflix, and long walks on the beach. Contact Matt at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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About four years ago, one of the professors who gave me recommendations for my applications to law school described the institution to me as “trade school.” I imagine that my professor completed his legal studies quite some time ago (a hunch supported by his shock of white hair), because fewer and fewer legal beagles out there seem to share that assessment these days. Consider, for instance, the American Bar Association’s ongoing Task Force on the Future of Legal Education. The ABA formed the Task Force in the summer of 2012 to ascertain how law schools, and the Association itself, should address recent problems in the economics and the delivery of legal education. In comments submitted for the Task Force’s consideration, legal practitioners have frequently raised the issue of whether law schools presently do a good job of preparing students for legal practice. A consensus seems to be emerging that the answer is no.

As The Economist magazine recently noted, American law schools don’t exactly strive to teach practical legal skills, since firms traditionally train new attorneys themselves. Many in the legal academy believe in principle that the doctrinal approach that law schools generally take is a positive good. Syracuse University law professor Kevin Noble Maillard, for example, has argued that “law school is not a trade school,” that “people go to law school, pay tuition and graduate to become many things: educators, business leaders, politicians and, yes, attorneys,” and that law school “prepares people to become leaders in our society, which makes it imperative that they be rigorously trained as thinkers.”

Yet in these belt-tightening times, law firms are increasingly loath to pick up the academy’s slack (if only because clients are getting tired of footing the bill). I, for one, can’t say I blame them. My application referee may not have been quite on the money when he described law school as “trade school,” but more’s the pity. The constant refrain I hear from practicing attorneys is that they learned little or nothing about legal practice in law school, which defies common sense. Lawyering involves a lot of hands-on work that can’t be taught in the abstract, from drafting contracts to persuading clients of the right pleas to enter or claims to file. Given that an increasingly expensive legal education is almost universally required of anyone who wants to enter the profession, it’s only logical that law school should put greater emphasis on practical skills.

Professor Maillard’s position strikes me as rather misguided. He tellingly prefaced his statement with “at the risk of sounding ‘liberal artsy’”—which is exactly the point. There is no logical reason why law schools should consider it their mission to “emphasize educated citizenship.” That goal seems much better suited to undergraduate programs, which in any case cast a much wider net than law schools do and will thus reach more of the societal leaders of tomorrow. Training those leaders to have certain knowledge and to think in certain ways is desirable—but not all such budding public figures go to law school, and American law students have to go to college first anyway. It would make more sense to let them learn “educated citizenship” while earning their bachelor’s degrees and learn how to practice law in law school.

Some schools have already begun getting with the program, establishing practical skills courses and requirements. The ABA’s own Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has received a petition to amend law school accreditation standards. In addition to requiring J.D. students to earn 15 academic credits in experiential courses, the proposal would also require each student to take at least one law clinic or externship in order to graduate. This seems like an eminently wise proposition. Every time I’ve heard a lawyer tell me that he or she didn’t learn anything about legal practice in law school, I’ve wondered, “Didn’t you do any clinics?” Lawyers themselves seem to agree that clinic work is one of the main means by which law students can learn how to be attorneys while still in school. In a 2004 ABA study, lawyers who had been practicing for two or three years rated clinical courses their third most useful law school experience—behind legal jobs during summers and the school years, and ahead of legal writing courses and internships and traditional doctrinal courses.

So if clinics have so much potential to prepare law students for legal practice, then why are so many of them graduating from law school so operationally clueless? After a bit of digging, I found that—as I suspected—clinical training isn’t as widely accessible as it could or should be. According to data from the ABA and the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), only 15% of law schools presently require or guarantee legal clinic experience to all students. Yet according to Robert R. Kuehn, a professor at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, the same data indicate that 84% of law schools have the resources to offer clinical opportunities to all of their students at little or no additional cost in higher tuition.

So I look favorably on the proposal made by the aforementioned petition submitted to the ABA. Requiring all law students to get at least a taste of what lawyers actually do on the job will help make sure that graduates are ready to do what they are studying to do. It can also help give prospective law school applicants a better idea of what they may be getting themselves into—when they still have a chance to avoid it.

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Featured image courtesy of [walknboston via Wikipedia]

Akil Alleyne

Akil Alleyne, a native of Montreal, is a graduate of Princeton University and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. His major areas of study are constitutional and international law, with focus on federalism, foreign policy, separation of powers and property rights. Akil is also a member of Young Voices Advocates, which connects students and young professionals with media outlets worldwide to facilitate youth participation in political and social discourse. Contact Akil at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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