More on La Verne College of Law's Accreditation

La Verne College of Law has received official notice from the ABA (by way of a 14-page letter; did this really take 14 pages?) that its accreditation committee recommended denying La Verne because of low bar passage rates.

This shouldn't surprise anyone when a school's bar passage rate is less than 70% after the 2nd try and the 1st try takers lag behind the state's other schools.

But of course, Dean Allen Easley has a defense/excuse: "we need more time!"

"We think that they've misunderstood some of the facts," Easley said of the committee's recommendation. "They have not given enough weight to all the changes we've made that are likely to produce better results in the future."

Making the requirements for admittance and grading more stringent could take years to show results, he said, adding that the university has also improved its legal-writing program and revamped its third-year bar exam support course.

You've had five years. Is that not the point of "provisional" accreditation, to give a school time to make adjustments before it becomes a fully-accredited institution? What were you doing in those five years? You had 3 full cycles of students. Why weren't these adjustments made already, as in 2-3 years ago? Or - if you had any institutional pride six years ago - after your 2005 class only had a 32% first-time pass rate? And where are these "more stringent" criteria for admissions? You're still apparently admitting kids with 148-150 LSATs. This kid and his/her 149/3.2 (public school poli sci) allegedly got $11,000 in scholarship money.

And let's not forget that the 1L transfer rate is over 17%. At least in my opinion, 1L attrition is a fairly solid indicator of the value of a school. Using LSN's numbers, the following schools are all over 20%: Florida Coastal, Cooley, Barry, St. Thomas (Florida), Cal-Western, Touro (37%!), Western New England, Jones/Faulkner, Liberty, Nova Southeastern, Oklahoma City, Detroit-Mercy, Valparaiso, Western State, Widener, Willamette, Florida International, and Golden Gate. I omitted Whitter because it was on probation at the time, and I probably missed one or two others. All of those are fully-accredited, and it reads as a who's who of poorly-regarded law schools. I think the ABA made a poor decision giving full accreditation to Jones/Faulkner and Liberty and I think any school that has 20+% of its students leave after the first year should be placed on automatic probation.

I'm also wondering how "more stringent" curves will make bar exam pass rates rise. What exactly is the thesis here? They'll force more drop-outs? That getting a C- in Torts instead of a C+ will make Joe Schmo study more?

Here's to hoping the ABA denies full accreditation. Sorting out the law school bubble will be no cut-and-dry task, but an ABA that enforces standards and refuses to add more schools to the mess is a positive step.