Florida Coastal Law School

Law School Dean Resigns

The dean at Florida Coastal School of Law is resigning
Dean Scott DeVito announced his resignation, effective immediately, last week.
“It has been a great honor to be a professor at Florida Coastal for the last eleven years and to have been your dean for the last four,” DeVito says in a statement to faculty. “After considerable thought and personal reflection, I have made the decision to resign from Florida Coastal School of Law. I wish you all the best and will greatly miss you.”
DeVito’s decision comes just a day after he sent an email informing students that the American Bar Association denied the law school’s application to convert to a nonprofit, according to The Florida Times-Union
BUMPY ROAD
Florida Coastal School of Law has had its fair share of bad press.
Back in 2017, the ABA notified the law school that its bar exam passage rates were far below average and that the law school had “fallen short of the standards after a regular review.”
“Those standards deal specifically with whether a law school’s program is rigorous enough for students to pass the bar and succeed in the profession, whether it provides meaningful academic support, and whether it admits too many underqualified applicants unlikely to succeed in the program and pass the bar after graduating,” writes Andrew Kreighbaum, a reporter at Inside Higher Ed.
More recently, the law school sought to gain non-profit status. If approved, the law school would be independent with its own governing board. Additionally, it would open the law school to applying for grants and the ability to seek alumni and community donations.
“This was an extremely disappointing outcome given how hard so many of us worked on the application,” DeVito writes to students.
DeVito will be replaced by Jennifer Reiber, dean of academics, as interim dean.
Florida Times-Union, Tipping the Scales, Inside Higher Ed