accreditation-law-schools

These schools are facing sweeping accreditation changes


As law schools across the country compete for a dwindling stream of applicants, the standards for the schools are shifting as well

accreditation-law-schoolsThe accrediting arm of the American Bar Association, which sets standards for almost every law school in the nation, is expected to approve sweeping changes this week, including a new focus on outcomes. Law schools, accustomed to proving their worth by showing what goes into their program – money, prestige and faculty, for example – will now have to prove students are actually learning something, likely by adding more in-depth testing and assessments.

This fall, Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law will be one of the first schools in the nation put to the test under the new standards. Accredited schools are reviewed every seven years.

“There’s been nothing like this at law schools before,” said Dannye Holley, dean of the law school, calling the focus on outcomes “a relative revolution for law schools.”

The changing standards are in part a response to the growing pressures on all of higher education, which has been challenged to prove that the growing cost of a college degree is actually worth it. Universities have also become more open to new teaching models, such as online education.

(Next page: Details about the new standards)

The new standards increase the number of hours of off-campus learning students can take from 12 to 15, in an effort to give law schools more flexibility. The bar association also wants to see students getting more hands-on education, boosting the number of required hours of practical skills courses – internships, for example – from one to six.

Even as all of academia faces growing pressure, law schools are in a particularly precarious position. The number of students landing jobs, often after racking up massive debt in law school, has dropped.

Last year, the employment rate among law graduates hit its lowest point since 1994, according to the National Association for Law Placement. Just 84.7 percent of the class of 2012 got jobs within nine months of graduation.

Pool is shrinking

Reduced employment opportunities have shrunk the number of students interested in going to law schools. The pool is just two-thirds the size it was four years ago and is set to narrow another 8 percent this year.

Maintaining accreditation is especially important as that pool shrinks. Only graduates from accredited schools may take the bar exam to practice in any state, so losing that stamp of approval “just drops the bottom out of your applicant pool,” Holley said.

These struggles aren’t totally new for law schools, which have had to adjust in recent years. The accreditation standards have already been updated, including a 2012 addition that required law schools to post their employment outcomes. The new standards say law schools much establish learning outcomes that, at a minimum, include competency in knowledge and understanding of substantive and procedural law, legal analysis and reasoning.

Thurgood Marshall is one of the few law schools in the country with its own assessment department, Holley said. That department is working on ways to measure what students are learning. For example, the school brings in practicing lawyers to read students’ work and provide feedback, even after the professor has graded the writing, so the students can see how effective their writing would be in the real world.

The University of Houston Law Center has also made changes, including cutting tuition, to keep up with market demands, interim Dean Richard Alderman said.

‘We’re not worried’

“I think every law school has continually been asking itself, ‘What are we doing, why are we doing it, should we be doing it and how could we be doing it better,’ ” Alderman said. “The accreditation standards – that’s the bare minimum. We’re not worried. The UH Law Center is not worried about whether we’ll meet the minimal requirement to give a legal education. We hope we far exceed that.”

UH went through its accreditation review in the spring, so it won’t be reviewed under the new standards for another seven years.

Thurgood Marshall, on the other hand, has been working for months to make sure it can meet the standards.

The school has put together a new strategic plan and self-study, where it makes its case for the school’s niche and mission and how those relate to the new standards, Holley said. That includes adopting a set of core learning outcomes for every student, such as boosting students’ critical thinking. The school is also trying to expand its partnerships with Houston nonprofits to provide students more internship opportunities, Holley said.

Thurgood Marshall’s review isn’t set until this fall; bar association officials will visit the campus in November. Holley said he isn’t worried about the school’s accreditation, but wants to make sure it has the best review possible under the new standards.

“We’ve been accredited for 70 years so it’s likely we will remain accredited,” Holley said.

©2014 the Houston Chronicle. Visit the Houston Chronicle at www.chron.com. Distributed by MCT Information Services.

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