Via law.com:
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.
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.
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.”
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.”