A putative class action complaint was filed by Jane Doe against Florida Coastal School of Law alleging that the school breached some unspecified contract with its students by forcing 3Ls to pass a bar prep class as a condition to graduating. We touched on this in an earlier thread, but it hadn't yet evolved into a lawsuit.
The allegation, as I understand it, is that FCSOL (rightfully) feared having its accreditation yanked by the ABA for continuously abysmal bar passage rates. In order to make itself more respectable and appear to be less of a dumpster fire, the school began requiring all students to pass a bar prep course as a condition of being awarded a J.D. The logic being that, in Florida, one must have a J.D. from an ABA-accredited school to sit for the bar exam.
This makes sense in a vacuum, dummies can't fail the bar if they can't take the bar. The problem, however, is that Florida Coastal was previously in hot water with the ABA for being out of compliance with ABA Accreditation Standard 501(b): "A law school shall only admit applicants who appear capable of satisfactorily completing its program of legal education and being admitted to the bar." The appropriate remedial action should have been not to admit dummies in the first instance, not admit the dummies, take their money, but keep them from taking the bar exam.
Florida Coastal recently got off the ABA's shit list, but I wonder if this alleged extra requirement to graduate was fully understood by the ABA?
Commenteriat, is FCSOL's alleged policy of withholding that sweet, sweet J.D. from kids likely to fail the bar exam prudent or predatory?
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