More Law Schools Criticized for Lax Admission Standards

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Summary: Two more law programs have been placed under surveillance to ensure they improve their admission standards of only accepting students that have a chance of graduating and passing the bar.

Two more law schools have been caught violating the American Bar Associations admission rules in a move by the ABA to stop schools from admitting students with no reasonable chance of graduating and passing the bar exam.

  

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The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar will censure Valparaiso University School of Law and put Charlotte Law School on probation. The schools violated the requirements to “maintain sound admissions policies” by not admitting “an applicant who does not appear capable of satisfactorily completing its program of legal education and being admitted to the bar.”

It was determined that Charlotte Law School has failed to “maintain a rigorous program of legal education that prepares its students, upon graduation, for admission to the bar and for effective, ethical, and responsible participation as members of the legal profession.”

The two schools are still accredited and will be given two years to be compliant with the rules. They are on notice that if things do not change, then they will lose their accreditation. Both schools acknowledged the fact that they are struggling to attract top quality candidates and have already put into place measures to correct this problem.

Some of the steps they have taken include reducing the number of students enrolled, thus cutting faculty sizes. Charlotte has turned to money to attract more students. They offered larger scholarships to students with higher LSAT scores.

Ave Maria School of Law was the first to be sanctioned this year.

Do you think law schools should be able to set their own standards as long as they are transparent in their data? Tell us in the comments below.

To learn more about the three schools, read these articles:

• Are InfiLaw Law Schools Scamming Students and Taxpayers?
• Ave Maria School of Law to Buy Campus
• Valparaiso University Law Offers Buyouts for Tenured Faculty

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