Legal News

Conditionally Accepted: Kill it as One L, and We?ll See You Next Year . . .

By Dan Slater

It’s commonplace for One L’s who’ve ranked highly in their class to consider transferring to a more prestigious law school after their first year. Prestige, experience, and career opportunities all play a role in the decision. But what if, based on your first-year GPA, you’d already been guaranteed a spot at, say, Northwestern.

Each year, 15 to 25 out of the 5,000 applicants that Northwestern Law School turns down receive so-called deferred conditional acceptances — meaning that, if you achieve a certain GPA at your school of choice, there’ll be a spot waiting for you. The December issue of the ABA Journal considers the issue.

Deans of lower-tier law schools argue that such recruiting is pred­atory, and helps top schools boost revenues while keeping up their LSAT and GPA averages, both of which are criteria in the U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings. We’ve reported similar practices — such as admitting students with sub-par LSATs and GPAs into the part-time program only — here and here.

Northwestern Dean David Van Zandt told the ABA Journal that he understands the poaching charge, and that it’s “probably true.” But top-performing students who have proved themselves “should be entitled to transfer, and there’s no harm in us facilitating that,” says Van Zandt. “Chrysler and General Motors don’t agree not to poach each other’s customers.” During the 2006-2007 academic year, Northwestern added 43 transfers to its 238-student first-year class.

Some legal educators worry that such recruiting is becoming increasingly more aggressive. David Yellen, dean at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, told the ABA Journal: “If the U.S. News incentive went away tomorrow, transfer acceptance would drop.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 29, 2008 (boomark / email).