Expelled Law Student Sues Law School For Failing Out Students With C+/B- Grades:
Via law.com:
UPDATE: The complaint is here, via Overlawyered. I think my favorite parts are Count 8, in which the plaintiff seeks relief based on the civil cause of action known as "violation of ABA standards," and Count 11, in which the plaintiff seeks a regrade of his Contracts II final on the ground that his C grade was "unjustified" and that "he is entitled to a higher grade."
A former law student has filed a federal class action against St. Thomas University School of Law of Miami, claiming that it is illegally accepting and then expelling more than 25 percent of its first-year class to boost its flagging bar pass rates.Maybe on the first day of class the professor should say, "Look to your left, and now look to your right. By the end of the year, one of you will join a class action lawsuit."
Filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, the complaint alleges that the private law school unlawfully dismissed Thomas Joseph Bentey and as many as 80 students from the incoming class of 2005 because they failed to maintain a 2.5 grade point average.
The action further alleges that in 2003 the school began a scheme to accept large numbers of students — and their tuition dollars — only later to dismiss or pressure the withdrawal of almost 30 percent of its first- and second-year students. The case could include hundreds of former students as plaintiffs if the court grants class action status.
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Also named as a defendant in the lawsuit is the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar. The action asserts that the ABA failed to adequately oversee the school by not detecting the alleged scheme and by not taking the steps necessary to make sure the school was meeting its standards.
UPDATE: The complaint is here, via Overlawyered. I think my favorite parts are Count 8, in which the plaintiff seeks relief based on the civil cause of action known as "violation of ABA standards," and Count 11, in which the plaintiff seeks a regrade of his Contracts II final on the ground that his C grade was "unjustified" and that "he is entitled to a higher grade."
Seriously, if the school is being underhanded and is accepting students only to expel them later on, then something should be done. It's hard enough to get into law school without getting expelled from one after your first year. Where are you supposed to go then?
But at first blush, this sounds like an old-fashioned case of "I didn't study so I better blame it on the school so my parents don't cut me off."
Even the number that graduate have a horrible low bar passage rate. These schools, if less then half of the ADMITTED class fail to graduate and pass the bar, should be de-accreditted. They are money making schemes where students are actually more likely to suffer failure than gain a law license.
At the Boston LSAC law school meet and greet, St. Thomas offered me a full-ride simply on the basis of my LSAT score (I just wanted their cool pencil). Thank good ness I went to a school with a 90%+ graduation rate and a 90%+ bar passage rate. It's sad that other students aren't so lucky. They shouldn't be victimized. Shut These Schools Down. Or at least take away their accredidation.
I think that if St. Thomas DIDN'T flunk out a quarter of its students, it would open itself up to criticism for taking tuition under the false pretense that its graduates from the bottom quarter of its class would have more than a small chance of passing the FLA bar exam.
So long as St Thomas does not mislead anyone, this strikes me as a highly ethical business model for a lower tier law school.
Jim Lindgren
If they are taking the median grade and calling it a C, then a standard linear curve would find as many As as Fs, etc. Obviously, it would have to be an approximation.
These people were studying to be lawyers for Christ's sake, and they are claiming they should be compensated because they were too lazy to do due diligence and/or too stupid to understand the risk they were assuming? Please!
These adults decided that they wanted to attend law school despite the fact that most or all of them doubtless had marginal qualifications. St. Thomas gave them what they wanted. Plenty of marginal students take advantage of such an opportunity, pass the bar and have careers as lawyers. These particular students, however, failed to make the grade and were cut. That's the risk they assumed.
Is a system that denies everyone such an opportunity because some will fail preferable? Is a system that takes such students' money for three years despite knowing (from historic information) that few of them will pass the bar, preferable?
And if a legal precedent is established saying that the admission of students unlikely to succeed is actionable, that should have some very interesting applications to law and medical school affirmative action programs.
Nope, that's exactly what you'd get with a symmetric Gaussian distribution.
So it's a pretty normal curve.
This would seem uncontroversial, except for the fact so many people apparently disagree. Yes, ideally students wouldn't get themselves in these situations, but it's the schools that really should (and do) know better. Entering students aren't that sophisticated and, while it's easy to fault them for not (e.g.) researching bar-pass rates, this criticism basically ignores human nature.
At the very least, schools shouldn't throw students out onto the (metaphorical) streets when alternatives exist. When such problems arise, a faculty member should schedule an appointment with the student, describe in a very, very clear (but compassionate) way the faculty's view of the student's situation, and direct the student to career-counseling resources provided by the school. Expulsion should be an absolute last resort.
St. Thomas did this guy a favor. Now he can get a real job.
When 30% of a class fails out, we are dealing with something far beyond bad study habits or honest mistakes by the admissions department. A rate that awful seems indicative of a conscious effort to collect as many tuition checks as possible and weed out the idiots, with no regard for how that policy might devastate the student's finances and emotions.
There's something implicit in an acceptance letter that says you are qualified to be a lawyer from an intellectual standpoint.
Also, the plaintiff and his attorney are clearly living in a fantasy world when they claim that he lost $35,000 in earnings for the years he would have been in law school (paragraph 32C). I graduated from a top 40 law school 2 years ago and I bet I can count on both hands the students at my school that landed summer jobs that paid in that range.
They probably have a lot of merit scholarships that do not consider need whatsoever. These applicants are likely to graduate and pass the bar, obtained acceptance at a better school, and are essentially being bought as matriculates at St. Thomas.
That, alone, is not an issue. However, the charges incurred by offering the above students the education need to be countered by income; in this case, tuition. So, the school accepts a large number of underqualified students (as high, apparently, as 30% of the incoming class!) the next year.
In effect, the scholarship student is being used to attract this underqualified student. In doing so, the school is creating a trimodal class -- 30% scholarships, 40% lesser students, and 30% unqualifieds. (I'm making up some of the numbers, but I bet I'm close.)
Couldn't the school just forgo the scholarships and instead cater to the lesser students, by approaching a 15-70-15 distribution? I see the value of giving unqualifieds a shot, especially with full disclosure, but this outcome reeks.
So you would like (1) for law schools to not give students a chance unless they meet certain very steep requirements that show that will be highly likely to "benefit" from law school and (2) for law schools to be compelled to set these requirements which you will determine ?
Personally, I would prefer that law schools give the unconventional student a chance let in those at the margins who would like a chance to prove themselves, and not be too strict on conventional LSAT and GPA requirements; and I would be in favor of letting each law school determine these standards on their own, not have them enforced by law or by your mandate.
anon atty,
That $35k wasn't opportunity cost of the poor bastard being let in to law school where he was forced to waste his time rather than hold a job elsewhere since he was doomed to failure anyway by their ridiculous standards (that he maintain a reasonable GPA).
-- So, you think it is morally preferable to A) run your law school not to maximize top scholarship by attracting top students, but to maximize the chance of everyone passing by setting the bar at a good middle place - not too low, not too high, just right for GoldiLaw and B) to leave very intelligent but poor students in the cold, even though your school could afford to offer them a scholarship, because allowing more students in than will manage to pull through is terribly wrong and C) leave those marginal students who believe they can make it and want to try and can afford to do so in the cold because you are afraid of hurting some people's feelings by letting them in and then giving them their grades at the end of the year ... ?
The determining factor is how well these failing students would be doing at another institution. If they just can't get in anywhere else, well then, what can you say? A school with a really liberal admissions policy will attract a disproportionate share of marginal cases, and if you're teaching to a high standard, you'll cull out a disproportionate number of those marginal cases.
At the same time, you should never assign a failing grade to adequate work, just to keep a mathematical curve. If you're admitting students and then failing a certain percentage of them regardless of the quality of their work, you'd better be DAMNED sure that percentage is much smaller than the number of students who are really inadequate for the task, or you're doing the entire academic community a huge disservice.
I do say, though, that if you're working on -law school-, isn't there a certain question of exactly how long you're supposed to have your hand held? I mean, it's post-graduate university work. Aren't you supposed to be able to do research and read the fine print by then?
If a student can't figure out a way to sue his or her way to a passing grade, then he or she clearly doesn't have what it takes to be a lawyer in this day and age.
Is that all it took to maintain a B- at STUSLM? If that was the expectation, but the reality is that it took more than that, I see the point that the school should have been more clear about it. I don't think there's anything wrong with a law school for those who don't qualify for better law schools (the equivalent of foreign medical schools, which can work for those folks who messed up as undergraduates, but are now motivated enough to work twice as hard), but it ought to be made clear.
There were as many A's as B's as F's? That's a pretty weird curve.
I read |A| = |F| and |B| = |D|, not |A| = |B| = |D| = |F|.
I like how the plaintiff claims to have suffered embarassment (paragraph 32F), yet he files a lawsuit which lists his weak grades for all to see
Is there any claim for embarassment which is immune from this criticism?
His cumulative GPA was 2.397, according to the complaint. It doesn't take much favorable light to consider this and the efforts he made and that were made on his behalf (Point 20, Mom) and note, as in Point 18, that he was close. I suppose this makes him more sympathetic than someone who didn't stand a chance.
These people were studying to be lawyers for Christ's sake, and they are claiming they should be compensated because they were too lazy to do due diligence and/or too stupid to understand the risk they were assuming? Please!
Points 22 and 23 claim that there is incorrect information published by STUSLM about the curves actually used and the procedures actually used, reiterated in the points summarized at Point 29. The change in policy is recent (since 2003, according to Point 25A et seq) so external research beyond the information published by STUSLM would not have been available at the time Bentey applied, given that he was admitted to the class entering in 2004.
As for laziness, see again about his mother and the ungranted request for review: we don't know if he took extra efforts before the exams, but he certainly did after the grades.
As for the ABA being named, I don't see the frivolity there either, if accreditation is to have any meaning to would-be students.
Some schools are easier to fail out of, once admitted, than others. I don't know if the difficulty of getting in should be positively or negatively correlated with the difficulty of graduating, but as a consumer, one deserves not to be deceived about the risk one is assuming.
Where've you been? The courts have already moved on from smokers to fat people, why shouldn't law students be next?
So having Mommy call seeking special dispensation counts as 'extra effort'? And when be botches a brief as a practicing lawyer, no doubt she'll be happy to call the judge ex parte to plead his client's case.
Followed by a group hug and a big bowl of ice cream.
In fact, St. Thomas did describe, in the clearest way possible, the faculty's view of the student's situation (i.e., that further study would be like trying to teach a pig to sing) and they compassionately declined to take any more of the lug-head's money. As for career counseling, I think the school pretty effectively counseled that he should be finding another one.
Also, many schools don't use a mandatory curve. At my school we use a mean; that means no one has to get either an A or an F. And there are many law students who could do much better in law school if they would only work harder and more effectively. For example, they could pay attention to their professor rather than surf the net in class!
You have too high a view of the ability of admission officers to tell who can do the job.
Assume you have a pool of students of whom you can predect that each of them has a 70% chance to succeed in school, but your model isn't any more precise. Isn't it reasonable to admit them all and drop the 30% who don't cut the mustard?
As long as entering students know what they are getting into, and as long as the weeding out is done in the first year, I don't have a problem. I have a problem wigh a school that takes tuition money for 2 or 3 years before failing out the student. I also have a problem with schools that take money from students who are not performing to standard, pass them, and let them fail certificatin exams, or let them poorly serve clients/patients/customers.
Whatever happened to the concept of opportunity? So what if someone did miserably on the LSAT, or had poor undergrad grades, or both? If he thinks that he has what it takes to be a lawyer, and is willing to work at it, why not give him an equal opportunity?
1. St. Thomas University School of Law of Miami
2. under qualified students
I'd be interested in knowing how their fall recruitment season goes for the next couple of years, given their recent claim to fame.
The underlying premise of his suit is that the school is fraudulently undergrading this guy because the school doesn't think he'll pass the bar exam, and they want to inflate their pass numbers. If the school did think he'd pass the bar, they'd have no reason to kick him out, since it's just costing them his future tuition. But clearly, he's not really disputing their assessment; after all, he is is not contesting any of his grades other than his Contracts grade, so he's not arguing that he's really a 3.5 GPA student who the school is fraudulently treasting as a 2.4 GPA student. He's arguing that he's really a 2.5 or 2.6 GPA student who the school is fraudulently treating as a 2.4 GPA student. Basically, we -- the school, this guy, and us here at Volokh -- are all in agreement that he almost certainly is not going to pass the bar.
So, while he still asks for injunctive relief, asking them to raise his Contracts grade, the real theory of his case is, "They shouldn't have admitted me at all." IOW, he's suing to be (retroactively) rejected from law school.
Actually, he's seeking a far better deal than mere retroactive rejection. If he prevails, he gets to keep the benefit of admission (the chance to achieve a 2.5 gpa and become a lawyer). However, having flunked that, he seeks the additional benefits of retroactive rejection (refunded tuition and lost income) and, in not finished there, he also wants treble damages under RICO and money for the embarrassment he suffered as the result of the exposure of his idiocy.
No, they wouldn't, because if ST attracted highly qualified students they wouldn't have a 30% flunk-out policy. ST's policy is in response to statistics showing that the bottom 30% of the students who actually end up attending ST had very little chance of passing the bar exam.
In the unlikely event that the quality of ST's admittees should dramatically improve, ST could maintain its mandatory grade curve while dropping its expulsion policy.
Perhaps, as relief you would like admission to the bar or may be the next seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. Only rarely are grades given they are usually earned. You earned low grades! Your lawsuit should be tossed and you should be tossed from law school.
We all probably earned grades we thought should be higher, but we do not make federal cases out of it. You should try what I have and work harder!
When a school is easy to get into, the only way to ensure quality graduates is to screen out the worst students.
Nevertheless, I did see method in their madness: it looked as if they accepted students who could supply at least one of good GREs or good grades/recommendations. The latter were of unknown value for undergraduates from Podunk, some of whom turned out to be near-brilliant and others clueless. The former were either late bloomers, lazy, or any number of other possibilities. Many Berkeley PhDs weren't accepted at any other top-five department (I am one such).
If he can get at least a "B" from the Judge, the rest of his lawsuit should be allowed to continue. If not, he goes home with nothing.
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Scratch that, the judge would probably go easy on him. The CLERKS should do the grading... I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
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Nope, that's exactly what you'd get with a symmetric Gaussian distribution.
So it's a pretty normal curve.
If it's a normal curve, what's it perpendicular to?
I'm not sure who is worse, the plaintiff or the lawyers, Michael Lombardi of Lombardi &Lombardi, who represent him.
I hope southpark finds a way to work something in about this case. (Kartman: You will respect mai inferiority!)