This is from the past summer but deserves mentioning.
Why the **** is Cooley Law School still open?
40 of 144 of its 2019 graduates managed to pass the bar exam. 28%.
The problem with Cooley isn’t that it is necessarily a sub par institution with sub par instructors. The problem is that it takes almost exclusively sub par students. Students who just barely score high enough on their LSAT to get into law school at all. Students who could never get into even a normal “low tier” institution and even if they could would have little chance of graduating from such an institution.
But Cooley takes them in, takes their money and pumps them out with essentially a worthless piece of paper. And even if they are in the 28% that actually passes the bar, their long term law employment outlook is not good.
I will go ahead and say it.
Cooley is a diploma mill, pure and simple.
This country has too many law schools anyhow. Cooley should be #1 to shut down, followed in turn by other marginal law schools, particularly Southern University, Appalachian University, Texas Southern University, North Carolina Central University, Concordia University, Thomas Jefferson University, Florida A&M University, Widener Commonwealth University, University of the District of Columbia, Ave Maria University, Charleston University, Mississippi College, North Dakota University and Roger Williams University. Another one on the list I would close, even though it has climbed out of the worst of the worst in the last couple of years is Florida Coastal College of Law.
That is by NO MEANS all the law schools I would close, just the first group that I would close.
Is it Cooley’s fault that the people they give a chance to, don’t apply themselves?
Presumably Cooley and the other ones you wish to close are not as expensive as the “top” schools.
So someone could get into those lower ranked schools, buckle down and pass the bar exam if they tried hard enough.
(Also it may be that those top schools give their students the answer in advance, while the lower ones don’t. (Who knows what a little donation here or there will get for the most wealthy among us.) )
Cooley’s “fault” is that they accept students that, even if they do pass the bar, have dim prospects in the legal community.
The fact is that automation has reduced the need for attorneys in the same way it has reduced the need for other professions and for skilled workers, etc. There used to be a need for attorneys who did nothing but sift through records and files and do general research. These days, advanced legal research websites have made these type of attorney jobs superfluous. In the past, a Cooley graduate might have filled a job like this. But most of those types of jobs are gone and the rest are fast following.
Now all a Cooley graduate can hope for is a job in a tiny rural law firm or to try to make it as a single practitioner. Poor prospects with mediocre remuneration at best.
Even if you do graduate from a decent law firm there are no guarantees of success. A young lady from my own high school class received her J.D. from Wake Forest. After practicing law for a little over 5 years, she now runs an Allstate Insurance sales firm. She keeps her license active but has not actually practiced law in over 20 years.
It can be a crap shoot even graduating from better schools.
Or an elected member of the House of Representatives for the 13th district of Michigan. What do you have against the highly successful and respected representative, Rashida Tlaib?
It does appear not only law, but other colleges with some vocational programs, are shutting down. Appears here the problem is debt accrued by the school & a failed merger.
“Is it Cooley’s fault that the people they give a chance to, don’t apply themselves?”
If that’s the case, no. I just found out about the closure of Mount Ida—which had a few good vocational programs that didn’t require four years—a few weeks ago.
One of their four year degree holders worked with me awhile back and told me something quite similar to your question. Other than Thomas, I don’t know any former students there to really answer that.
But in his words, students were blaming & filing complaints as a group against a particular professor when apparently many missed that professor’s senior biochemistry class & failed to turn in homework.
“Gee, that’s funny. I’m a full time working student who completed the homework & passed the class.“ Many complaining were strictly students, yet chose not to apply themselves.
Seems to me there are a lot of colleges for a number of students who shouldn’t even be steered towards a four year institution, much less graduate programs. Maybe it’s time, as in the case of Mount Ida, for Cooley and other less selective schools to shut down if many aren’t applying themselves & will have more chance of student debts than employment prospects.
I’m wondering, too, if law school in general is such a realistic prospect when some transactions that may have once required an attorney can be assisted by a paralegal or clerk of court, such as simple divorces with no children involved.
My daughter’s lifelong friend and our former neighbor recently announced her wedding engagement. I was not familiar with the young man, but one of his posts came across my FB feed, so I clicked to check him out. Sadly I saw that he was attending Thomas Cooley Law School. I’m sure her family just thinks that it’s great that he’s in law school, and sadly his family probably doesn’t know any better either.
The law school application process is interesting.
When you take the LSAT and submit your undergraduate transcripts, those scores are released to all schools (if you check the box), not just schools you actually apply to.
I did rather well on the LSAT, and my undergraduate GPA was relatively good - and I got hundreds of emails from lower-tier law schools all but begging me to apply to them.
I don’t know whether Cooley sent me any emails, but I’m pretty sure they at least sent me a fee waiver. Suffice it to say I didn’t apply there.
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