Practice Management

I have to think what a mess.

In 2004 Dean Paul Hendrick, the founding dean of Florida Coastal School of Law, really the first of the really successful for-profit law schools founded American Justice School of Law in Paducah, Kentucky of all places.  The law school was suppose to be different because it was to require law students to work in one of its law clinics and take practice skills courses before they were allowed to graduate.  It was to achieve enrollment of 500 students in five to six years and achieve ABA provisional accreditation.

Then a lawsuit broke out between Thomas Osborne and the law school, on behalf of the student body and himself as a shareholder of the school.  Dean Hendrick raised the specter that all this was an attempt at a hostile takeover of the school.  Of course, the lawsuit was settled and nobody got to hear the nasty details.  But, according to statements made, stockholders in the school who guaranteed loans to develop the law school could have to pay $1.8 million in debts if the school fails to receive accreditation and grow the student body.

Now the website for the American Justice School of Law is no more.  The school's name has been changed to the Barkley School of Law, as it is now named after Harry Truman's vice president.  The new website was not operating when I tried to use it.

According to ABA Journal, even with the settlement of the lawsuit, there have been major problems at the school.  Staff had quit; the school had no operating budget; the new owners had failed to provide funding, pay bills or recruit students; the water had been cut off to the law library; the school Nexis account had been suspended; and, the staff was left without disability and workers' comp benefits.

So, the new owners hired a new dean and changed the name to that of a former obscure politician.

Although I have had no real opinion on for-profit law schools, this situation is harming real students and people who want to be lawyers, and what to be taken seriously.  It really calls into question the for-profit model.

I think students would be very hard pressed to attend this school.

Kentucky is not without a number of law schools for the size of the state.  They are:

• Chase College of Law, Highland Heights
  Nunn Hall, Highland Heights 41099, Phone: (859) 572-5340 
• University of Kentucky College of Law, Lexington
  620 S. Limestone, Lexington 40506-0048, Phone: (859) 257-1678 
• University of Louisville, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, Louisville
  2301 South Third Street, Louisville 40292, Phone: (502) 852-6358