Florida Coastal School of Law

Florida Coastal School of Law, the sole law school in Jacksonville, is one of eleven ABA-accredited schools in the state. The law school has a student body of almost 1,500 law students, hailing from about 46 states and 254 different colleges and universities. The website states that “faculty members represent more than 50 ABA-accredited law schools from across the country, including” Harvard, Duke, Georgetown, Columbia and NYU.

Admissions and Tuition

In 2009, Florida Coastal had a median incoming LSAT of 150 and a median GPA of 3.20. The school received about 6,300 full-time applications and 57 part-time applications. Of the 4,100 full-time acceptances and 33 part-time acceptances, 722 enrolled.

Current Florida Coastal law students claim that the application process was easy, with scholarships awarded to people who were above a certain range. Students warned, however, that those scholarships could and would be revoked if a recipient fell beneath a certain class rank. These students claimed most recipients lost their scholarships after the first year.

Full-time tuition at Florida Coastal costs a little over $32,600 a year, while part-time tuition runs about $26,500. About 41 percent of full-time students and a negligible five percent of part-time students received some form of grant aid from Florida Coastal. The median amount of aid was $7,000 for full-time recipients. On average, 2009 graduates incurred a hefty $109,528 in law school-related debt.

Academics

The typical 1L section size for students is 82. The school has 131 teaching faculty members and a student-to-faculty ratio of 21 to 1. Current students have mixed reviews about the school’s academic merits. The curriculum at Florida Coastal is rigorous, requiring first-year students to take a myriad of courses, including civil procedure, lawyering, torts, property, criminal law and contracts. Current students say the grading curve is harsh and results in a whopping 20 percent of students dropping out after the first year, and another 8 percent after their second. Students say professors are mostly friendly, helpful and have an open-door policy.

Quality of Life

Most students seem content with the quality of life at Florida Coastal. Jacksonville offers the amenities of a warm Florida town, including bars, restaurants, sunny beaches and enviable weather. While the school itself has no on-campus housing, students don’t have much trouble finding adequate housing off-campus. Because the school is not associated with an undergraduate college, Florida Coastal students say they are more tightly knit than students at other law schools. The student bar association consistently hosts school-wide events, so it seems like there is always something to do at Florida Coastal.

Employment Prospects and Bar Passage

A high 95.4 percent of 2008 graduates were known to be employed within nine months of graduation. For those graduates, the median salary in the private sector was $53,750. The median public-sector salary was $40,062. About 74 percent of the class was employed in the state of Florida, which supports student claims that the law school is gaining a favorable reputation in legal communities throughout the state. Still, with eleven law schools in Florida, competition for jobs is tough, and Florida Coastal’s Tier 4 status tends to hurt graduates who are hunting for jobs.

Graduates do say, however, that the career services office works well with students and is fairly efficient at placing people within the state. These students warn, however, that if you wish to move outside of the state, the leg work involved in starting a legal career will be left to you.

Florida Coastal graduates recently passed the Florida state bar at a rate of 83 percent, a couple percentage points higher than the state average. This score puts them in the bottom half of the eleven ABA-accredited law schools in Florida. 

Conclusion

As a Tier 4 law school in a market saturated with lawyers, graduates of Florida Coastal will likely find their transition into the workforce to be difficult. With over $109,000 in debt and the prospect of making less than $50,000 coming out of law school, Florida Coastal graduates face a rough road ahead of them. Still, if you wish to practice in Florida and are willing to gamble on beating the grading curve, Florida Coastal can give you the tools to get you where you want to be.

Contact Information 

Florida Coastal School of Law
Office of JD Admissions: 
8787 Baypine Road
Jacksonville, FL 32256
(904) 680-7710
admissions@fcsl.edu
http://www.fcsl.edu

Quick Facts

U.S. News & World Report ranking: Tier 4
LSAT Median: 150
GPA Median: 3.20
Application Deadline: N/A
Application fee: $50
Entering class size: 702 (FT), 20 (PT)
Yearly Tuition: Full-Time: $32,662 Part-Time: $26,442
Bar passage rate in Florida: 83% 
Percent of graduates employed 9 months after graduation: 95.4%
Median private sector salary: $53,750 (Class of 2008, a scant 28% reporting)