Lots of news broke out about legal education during the past year. Unfortunately for law schools, much of it was bad. Here are the top 10 law school stories of 2011.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that law schools feel pressure to admit students with good grades and high scores on the Law School Admission Test, since those metrics count heavily toward their U.S. News & World Report ranking. That pressure got the better of some administrators at Villanova University School of Law, who admitted in February to goosing the numbers reported to the American Bar Association and U.S. News for years. (Those involved, including a former dean, resigned or were fired). The University of Illinois College of Law was next; an investigation launched in August revealed that the school’s admissions dean had reported falsely high credentials for incoming students since 2005. The Law School Admission Council — which maintains data on applicant tests scores and grades — now is considering whether to audit the figures law schools report, and the ABA is mulling tougher penalties for schools that lie.
