Several major legal education organizations and 10 stand-alone law schools received forgivable emergency loans of $150,000 or more from the Small Business Administration, newly released data show.

Those Paycheck Protection Program loans were among the $350 billion allocated by Congress in March to assist businesses struggling amid the COVID-19 outbreak. The Law School Admission Council received the largest loan among legal education entities, listed between $5 million and $10 million. (The data released by the SBA provides only ranges for loan amounts, and not the precise figure for each recipient.) Council president Kellye Testy said Tuesday that it had received a $5.3 million loan. The council, which creates and administers the Law School Admission Test and maintains a centralized application system for law schools, used the funds to help develop the LSAT-Flex, a shorter, online version of the admissions test that debuted in June after all in-person LSATs were canceled due to COVID-19.

"The support from the PPP enabled [the council] to maintain operational continuity at a time of severe disruption due to the pandemic," Testy said. "We were able to maintain all our vital services to schools and candidates and at the same time develop a new online delivery system for the LSAT that enabled candidates to earn a score from the safety of their own homes and enabled this year's applicant volumes to catch up with last year's."

The Association of American Law Schools, of which nearly every American Bar Association-accredited law school is a member, also received a loan of $350,000 to $1 million, according to the data. Association spokesman James Greif said Tuesday that actual loan amount was $400,000.

"AALS used the loan to prevent any layoffs or furloughs of staff which would have been necessary otherwise to offset the revenue lost due to cancellation of meetings, including the Workshop for New Law School Teachers and the Conference on Clinical Legal Education," Greif said. "Preventing layoffs or furloughs also enabled AALS to support law schools with new resources and programming to address challenges caused by the pandemic."

The bulk of the PPP loans went to stand-alone law schools, however. Many law schools that are part of larger universities likely benefited from government loans given to their home campuses, but the SBA data only show loans made directly to law schools that operate independently of a home institution. And there are fewer than 20 such law schools now open. (At least 45 firms among the Am Law 200 also received PPP loans.)

• The law schools receiving loans of $150,000 to $1 million include Appalachian School of Law and Thomas Jefferson School of Law.
• Among the law schools receiving $1 million-$2 million are: Atlanta's John Marshall Law School; Ave Maria School of Law; and Charleston School of Law.
• The law schools receiving $2 million-$5 million include Albany Law School; New York Law School; Vermont Law School; California Western School of Law; and South Texas College of Law—Houston.

"The pandemic has presented many challenges, and Albany Law is not immune," said Albany Law spokesman Chris Colton. "We are using the loan to maintain our staffing—which allows us to address important technology and public health needs—as we continue to offer an excellent legal education, robust student services, and direct legal services to clients of The Justice Center."

Vermont Law School has used its loan to help make the switch to online learning, said dean Thomas McHenry. Vermont is among a small but growing cohort of law schools that plan to stay entirely remote for the fall semester.

"Vermont Law School received a PPP loan, which allowed us to provide resources to ensure that all of our faculty and staff could transition to a remote teaching and work environment during the pandemic and comply with stay-at-home orders," McHenry said. "As we continue to hold classes online through the fall semester, this funding is proving helpful for [the law school] and preventing any interruption in the delivery of education and support to our students."

A handful of law schools that are not accredited by the ABA also received PPP loans of $1 million or less, the data show. The University of Virginia Law School Foundation, which raises money for the law school, also received a loan of $350,000 to $1 million.