Salaries Increase For First-Year Associates

Arizona Summit Law School

ABA Revokes Law School’s Accreditation

A private law school in Phoenix is losing its American Bar Association accreditation.
Arizona Summit Law School announced to its students and faculty via email Friday that the ABA decided to pull its accreditation, which means the school can no longer accept new students and is required to craft a plan for current students to complete their law degrees and take the Bar exam, azcentral reports. The move marks the first time in history that the ABA has revoked accreditation from a fully accredited law school.
The ABA’s decision to pull accreditation “seems unduly harsh for an institution that has performed well for most of its history, took appropriate curative action in a timely manner, and to this day remains in compliance with bar pass standards,” Don Lively, the school’s president and founder, tells the azcentral.
According to a public notice on June 8 released by the ABA, Arizona Summit has the right to appeal this decision by July 9. Additionally, the law school is required to file its teach-out plan within 10 days of the notice’s posting.
Law School Struggled With Declining Bar Performance
In July 2008, Arizona Summit had a 97% passage rate on the Arizona Bar exam, the highest rate among Arizona’s three law schools.
In recent years, however, the school has struggled to keep its numbers up. According to azcentral, nearly 70% of Arizona Summit graduates fail the Arizona Bar exam on their first attempt.
Take a look at the school’s recent bar exam rates, courtesy of Above The Law.
if(“undefined”==typeof window.datawrapper)window.datawrapper={};window.datawrapper[“nVlRY”]={},window.datawrapper[“nVlRY”].embedDeltas={“100″:603,”200″:498,”300″:445,”400″:445,”500″:445,”700″:418,”800″:418,”900″:418,”1000”:418},window.datawrapper[“nVlRY”].iframe=document.getElementById(“datawrapper-chart-nVlRY”),window.datawrapper[“nVlRY”].iframe.style.height=window.datawrapper[“nVlRY”].embedDeltas[Math.min(1e3,Math.max(100*Math.floor(window.datawrapper[“nVlRY”].iframe.offsetWidth/100),100))]+”px”,window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(“undefined”!=typeof a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var b in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])if(“nVlRY”==b)window.datawrapper[“nVlRY”].iframe.style.height=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][b]+”px”});
Source: Above The Law]
Arizona Summit is among three schools that recently sued the ABA for abuse of power and unequal treatment, according to azcentral. The action followed similar suits by its sister schools, Florida Coastal School of Law and the now-closed Charlotte School of Law. All three schools are owned by InfiLaw System.
Sources: azcentral, American Bar Association, Above The Law, azcentral