Legal Students Sue Chapman’s New Law School

A group of Chapman University law school students filed a class-action lawsuit Monday, alleging that they invested in a “useless legal education” after administrators falsely assured them the school would be nationally accredited.

The fledgling law school was twice denied accreditation this year by the American Bar Assn. and only belatedly applied for accreditation with the California Committee of Bar Examiners.

The lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court against the university and its law school, alleges that students were led to believe ABA accreditation was imminent and now find themselves wondering if they have invested tens of thousands of dollars for nought.

“There is a significant class of students who are in limbo as to whether or not they will be able to take the California bar exam or the bar exam in any other state,” said Santa Monica attorney Ian Herzog, who filed the case on behalf of four of the 200 students who enrolled at Chapman in 1995, the law school’s inaugural year.

“Why would there be 200 students enrolling if they weren’t told something that led them to believe that when they finished after three years they would be able to take the bar exam?” Herzog said. “Why else would they spend more than $18,000 a year, hocking themselves up for the foreseeable future, if they weren’t led to believe in various ways that they would be eligible to take the bar? They still don’t know if they can or they can’t, if they’ve wasted their money and if they’ll waste their money next year.”

According to the lawsuit, the administration told students at the end of January 1997 that it had “only belatedly applied for approval by the California Committee of Bar Examiners and that its application for ABA accreditation had been denied.”

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Accreditation by the ABA, the nation’s premiere legal organization, would allow Chapman to join the ranks of the 180 most respected law schools in the nation, qualify its graduates for the bar exam in any state, and lend prestige to the university and the program.

State accreditation would allow students to sit for the bar only in California.

Chapman University spokeswoman Ruth Wardwell said officials only learned of the lawsuit late Monday. She declined to comment on it, saying “we haven’t had an opportunity to review the lawsuit yet and talk with our legal counsel.”

Wardwell said, however, that school officials have been frank from the beginning about the school’s situation and open about the quest for accreditation.

“One thing that Chapman did do from the beginning was to be aggressive in that announcement,” she said. “We talked about what we wanted to do. From the beginning, we had confidence in Chapman’s ability.”

School officials last month allowed students to review a May 20 letter from the ABA explaining the rejection. The letter said the rejection was based on the school’s lack of comprehensive peer review and evaluation of the faculty’s legal scholarship and teaching methods.

Chapman officials have said the ABA letter misstated aspects of the school’s peer review process. The school is making recommended changes and plans to resubmit its accreditation application by Sept. 1, law school Dean Parham H. Williams Jr. has said. If the application is accepted, the school could be accredited by February.

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs enrolled at the law school in its inaugural year and expected to finish this coming June, then sit for the July 1998 California Bar Examination, or the bar exam in the state of their choice.

“Plaintiffs were led to believe that ABA approval would be obtained prior to graduation so that students from states other than California could sit for the bar examination in states other than or in addition to California,” the suit alleges.

The students have suffered “impairment of their professional careers and opportunities, future lost income and professional opportunities” and “the type of distress a reasonable person would experience when subjected to the outrageous conduct of being misled and cheated,” the suit said.

The lawsuit claims that plaintiffs are entitled to refunds and should have future fees paid because the law school improperly withheld information from them.

“Chapman has not been forthcoming,” Herzog said. “One of the reasons we filed this lawsuit is because we want the law school to do something for these kids. . . . We need whatever assistance the university can give to these students, to hopefully be able to take the bar exam on time, or if not on time, some time, and give a lot of them the necessary financial assistance they’re going to need.”

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One student entering his third year who is not a party to the lawsuit said most students are concerned about accreditation. However, he said he believes Chapman has been open about the situation.

“When we went in, we were definitely informed of what we were getting into in terms of ‘We’re not an accredited school,’ ” said Robert Wright, former co-chairman of the Student Bar Assn. “I don’t think anyone didn’t know that we had hurdles to jump. And I’m still optimistic. I really think we’re going to get it in February.”

Wright said he and other students signed a form acknowledging that they knew the school was not yet accredited.

“I don’t know anybody who hasn’t signed it,” he said. Herzog, however, said not all students signed such a form.