AB INITIO - THE BIRTH OF A LAW SCHOOL

Many of those who have applied for admission to the University of St. Thomas School of Law have asked about accreditation. Their concern is understandable: A student who graduates from an unaccredited law school is not permitted to sit for the bar examination in the majority of states. Their concern is also easily addressed: There is no real mystery about the accreditation process and no real reason to believe that St. Thomas will have difficulty getting accredited.

Law schools are accredited by the American Bar Association (“ABA”). Every new law school must open without being accredited — for the simple reason that the ABA does not permit a new law school to apply for accreditation “until it has completed the first academic year of its program.”

Some law schools have no intention of ever seeking accreditation. In some states, a student does not have to graduate from an accredited law school in order to sit for the bar. Many unaccredited law schools operate in such states.

Other law schools are more accurately referred to as “pre-accredited.” From the outset, these schools set out to achieve accreditation as soon as possible. St. Thomas is such a “pre-accredited” school.

At the beginning of its second academic year, a new law school seeking accreditation submits an application for provisional accreditation, an annual questionnaire, a self-study, and a site evaluation questionnaire. In these documents, the school provides detailed answers to various questions about its mission, policies, resources, faculty, students, and other matters. After receiving these documents, the ABA sends a site evaluation team made up of experienced legal educators to inspect the law school. The team visits classes, assesses the quality of the faculty, reviews admissions policies, inspects records, examines physical facilities, and assesses the law library. The team also consults with the president and other officers of the institution, the dean of the law school, members of the law school’s faculty and professional staff, law students, and members of the surrounding legal community.

Following the visit, the site evaluation team prepares a report of facts and observations, and submits this report to the Consultant on Legal Education to the ABA. The Consultant reviews the report for factual accuracy, gives the law school a chance to respond to the report, and then submits the report and related materials to the Accreditation Committee of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the ABA. The Accreditation Committee reviews all of the materials and then makes a recommendation to the Council, which makes the decision on accreditation, subject to review by the House of Delegates of the ABA.

A new law school that applies for provisional accreditation at the beginning of its second academic year and that successfully negotiates the accreditation process will receive provisional accreditation prior to the beginning of its third academic year. The ABA understands how important it is that a deserving law school receives accreditation before its first class of students graduates, so that those students will be eligible to sit for the bar exam in any state.

New law schools must first apply for provisional accreditation. They cannot apply for full accreditation until they have operated for at least two years with provisional accreditation. However, the distinction between provisional accreditation and full accreditation has no practical impact on students. In the words of the ABA, “an individual who graduates while the school is provisionally approved [is] entitled to the same recognition given to . . . graduates of fully approved law schools.”

While accreditation may sound complex, it is actually quite simple, if a new law school has sufficient resources and utilizes those resources to meet, or exceed, sensible standards. The ABA essentially requires that a law school operate in compliance with the ABA’s Standards for the Approval of Law Schools. Those Standards and the ABA’s interpretations of those Standards are reasonable, clear, and readily available. The most salient of those Standards relate to resources for the program, objectives and goals of the law school, governance, the law school-university relationship, diversity and equality of opportunity, career services, curriculum, evaluation of scholastic achievement, course credit and residence requirements, size and qualifications of faculty, professional environment, admissions standards and procedures, library and information resources, and the physical facilities of the law school. These are standards that any law school should meet. There are no surprises.

Similarly, the procedures followed by the ABA to determine whether a school qualifies for accreditation are clear and provide numerous protections to ensure that schools, and students, are treated fairly. On those occasions on which a school has been denied accreditation, it has not been because the school did not understand the Standards or was treated unfairly, but simply because the school did not have the resources or in some other way was unable to operate a program that meets the ABA’s requirements. As a result, a law school can be confident that it will be accredited as long as it carefully reviews all of the Standards, follows all of the procedures to the letter, and has sufficient start-up funding — by virtue of its own endowment and/or the funding it receives from its sponsoring university — to exceed the Standards.

The trustees and officers of the University of St. Thomas are absolutely committed to ensuring that the School of Law receives ABA accreditation at the earliest opportunity. The law school is part of a large, highly respected, 115 year old university. The trustees have developed a plan for a high endowment for the law program, and a significant portion of that endowment has already been given or pledged. Indeed, when the School of Law opens, its endowment should substantially exceed the median endowment of all accredited law schools, most of which have existed for decades. Design work on a new $30 million facility for the law school is well underway; groundbreaking is scheduled for next spring. Every member of the law school’s initial faculty has experience teaching at established law schools. The law school’s dean not only served as dean of a respected law school for almost a quarter century, but has substantial experience with the accreditation process, both as the dean of a school that was periodically visited by site evaluation teams, and as a member and often the chair of site evaluation teams that visited other law schools. The law school has hired outstanding consultants with many years experience with the accreditation process. And, perhaps most importantly, everyone involved with the School of Law — trustees, officers, governors, donors, law school administration, and law school faculty — are absolutely committed not just to meeting the ABA’s Standards, but to far exceeding them.

David T. Link
Dean
University of St. Thomas School of Law

posted April 1, 2001

For more information please contact:

University of St. Thomas School of Law
MPL 440
1000 LaSalle Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55403

E-mail: Lawschool@stthomas.edu
Web: http://www.stthomas.edu/lawschool

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