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Hi everyone,

I am considering attending Atlanta's John Marshall Law School and I was doing some online research and I ran in to an article which stated that Atlanta John Marshall Law school will lose its ABA Accreditation.... Is this true?

I am worried because I already paid the application fee and completed the application.

mod edit: SPAM

why would you pay money to apply to a school you haven't done any research on

Don't go.

Accredited or not John Marshall is a terrible option, if your goal is to find full-time gainful employment as a lawyer once you're done. Actually, regardless of your goals, don't go. Please.

That application fee should be the least of your worries.

For many years, John Marshall in Chicago has made clear that it is not connected to John Marshall Atlanta. That should tell you enough.

John Marshall in Atlanta, a private law school, has been in serious trouble since Georgia State University, a state supported public, in Atlanta took over Woodrow Wilson School of Law & become a very low cost option for those wishing to attend law school in Atlanta.

I'm mystified by OP's post history.

OP are you a 1L already? You've been posting in the Emory Transfer thread.

Are you at John Marshall? If you're an 0L this is an easy thing: don't go to John Marshall.

Winter is Coming wrote:I'm mystified by OP's post history.

OP are you a 1L already? You've been posting in the Emory Transfer thread.

Are you at John Marshall? If you're an 0L this is an easy thing: don't go to John Marshall.

The above are my concerns, too.

And OP, that's a random blog post by...someone, we don't know who, citing nothing concrete. I'm not saying John Marshall doesn't deserve to lose its accreditation, but there's nothing to go on in that post. Did you write it and post here hoping to get traffic?

The blog post is inconsistent. At the beginning it says:

"Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School is at High risk of losing its ABA Accreditation in a few years under ABA Standards for Accreditation which can be found here."

-- This may be true, though I don't know if the risk is high or not.

At the bottom it says:

When the ABA bar passage data for 2015 is released in December, 2015 it is expected that Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School will lose its accreditation. This is because AJMLS will not have met the minimum 75% bar passage rate in the 5 most recent years since the ABA has been requiring and recording bar passage data on law schools.

I don't know what will happen but the rules do not suggest that a revocation of accreditation is automatic based on the bar exam results for 2015, right after their release.

The rules on this are complex. The cited rule states that if a school falls out of compliance it will be reviewed under rule 13(b). 13(b) indicates that the school has up to two years to come into compliance (although the rule allows the ABA to give less than two years). At that point the school has a chance to excuse its weak bar performance and indicate ways it will improve its performance. If the ABA desires (meaning they likely didn't like the excuses and improvement plans), at this point it can revoke accreditation.

The most similar situation I can think of is Golden Gate which went on ABA probation for low bar passage rates and then improved them and got off probation.

Law Schools do not prepare students for bar passage. That is why Barbri (or similar) is necessary to secure before taking the bar. Am I misunderstanding something?

Saddle Up wrote:Law Schools do not prepare students for bar passage. That is why Barbri (or similar) is necessary to secure before taking the bar. Am I misunderstanding something?

The ABA still has bar passage requirements, since the whole point of law school, ostensibly, is to prepare you to be a lawyer. Are you suggesting they shouldn't care?

So wait, is OP planning on attending John Marshall, and then looking ahead to transfer to Emory? Explain what is going on here, OP

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

Saddle Up wrote:Law Schools do not prepare students for bar passage. That is why Barbri (or similar) is necessary to secure before taking the bar. Am I misunderstanding something?

The ABA still has bar passage requirements, since the whole point of law school, ostensibly, is to prepare you to be a lawyer. Are you suggesting they shouldn't care?

If the ABA cared we wouldn’t have 200 law schools cranking out 40,000 grads for 20,000 jobs

Saddle Up wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

Saddle Up wrote:Law Schools do not prepare students for bar passage. That is why Barbri (or similar) is necessary to secure before taking the bar. Am I misunderstanding something?

The ABA still has bar passage requirements, since the whole point of law school, ostensibly, is to prepare you to be a lawyer. Are you suggesting they shouldn't care?

If the ABA cared we wouldn’t have 200 law schools cranking out 40,000 grads for 20,000 jobs

True, but not really what I meant. Are you saying the ABA shouldn't track bar passage and sanction schools where a certain number of graduates fail?

I think the deal is that smart kids go to better schools, thus high bar passage. The not-so-bright ones can’t pass the bar no matter what school they attend. If the ABA would create a minimum passage rate to get into law school, bar passage rates would be higher. To let ill-equipped kids into LS and then blame the LS is ridiculous. (The school and ABA are equally culpable.)

Saddle Up wrote:I think the deal is that smart kids go to better schools, thus high bar passage. The not-so-bright ones can’t pass the bar no matter what school they attend. If the ABA would create a minimum passage rate to get into law school, bar passage rates would be higher. To let ill-equipped kids into LS and then blame the LS is ridiculous. (The school and ABA are equally culpable.)

But you get that this doesn't really have anything to do with whether John Marshall is going to lose its accreditation, right?

Are you implying that JM is at the bottom of the bar passage list? I’ve seen schools with horrible bar passage outcomes. I do not know where JM is ranked. Do you?

Saddle Up wrote:Are you implying that JM is at the bottom of the bar passage list? I’ve seen schools with horrible bar passage outcomes. I do not know where JM is ranked. Do you?

I never understand your posts. Did you read this thread?

Saddle Up, I think I get what you're going for, but its really a diversion from OPs very confusing sitaution that- for his sake- i hope we can clear up.

The bar passage requirements are designed so that it's nearly impossible for any school to lose accreditation. You just need 75% of students from the past five years to have passed a single bar exam somewhere. Doesn't matter if they took it six times.

Tiago Splitter wrote:The bar passage requirements are designed so that it's nearly impossible for any school to lose accreditation. You just need 75% of students from the past five years to have passed a single bar exam somewhere. Doesn't matter if they took it six times.

It's actually even more liberal than this. A school is also in compliance if it can show that 75% of its graduates who took the bar passed it in three of the last five years, or, if it doesn't meet either of these standards, that the bar passage rate of its grads who are first-time takers isn't more than 15 percentage points below the average first-time bar passage rate in that jurisdiction. As an extra-special bonus, the pass rate of the school's grads is counted as part of the denominator for the purposes of the latter calculation.

After all of that, a school can still dodge this particular bullet if it can convince the ABA Section of Legal Education (generally stacked with deans and faculty of low-ranked schools) that there are various extenuating circumstances explaining the failure to meet the standards.

So yeah, it's a test with curve that guarantees it's almost impossible to fail.

Thanks for that behind the curtain exposė.

op is making up this entire post
it's a complete fabrication
he's actually just trying to plug his website – he's the owner of lawschoolguy.com

uflaw99's first three posts were spam links to lawschoolguy.com
he deleted the third post after scoot called him out for spamming

realizing that he came on too strong, his next posts didn't plug the site
instead, he posted that he was trying to choose between georgetown and UF
not as a transfer – he clearly stated he was a 0L
these posts were from a couple of weeks ago:

UFlaw99 wrote:I have UF law Admission with instate tuition + $20k scholly costing $36k total cost all 3 years OR should I go to Georgetown at Sticker costing me over $160k for 3 years tuition only.

Please help need to make a decision.

UFlaw99 wrote:I am from South Florida. I am do not mind working for Big Law or Small Law. No preference. Not desperate to make big bucks! I like DC but hate the weather but love the beaches in South Florida but can live anywhere DC, NyC, Miami etc... Background is I have an MBA in finance from top 50 b school and want to transition to law. I am 30 years old. I do not want to retake LSAT. 168 but Ugpa was low at 2.89.

then he apparently changed his mind and became a 1L
days after saying he was a 0L, he suddenly moved up a year:

UFlaw99 wrote:Checking In...

Fourth Tier School
1L GPA: 3.1 and Class Rank is Top 10%
Applied EA
1 Cali Award

What are my chances?

today lawschoolguy.com came out with a new post
and wouldn't you know it, uflaw99 is a 0L again and conveniently posts a link to the website

lol

well, that's enough of that, then.