BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 1281
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Date of Hearing: June 8, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY
Mark Stone, Chair
SB
1281 (Block) - As Amended May 27, 2016
As Proposed to be Amended
SENATE VOTE: 36-0
SUBJECT: LAW SCHOOLS: UNACCREDITED LAW SCHOOL DISCLOSURES
KEY ISSUE: SHOULD LAW SCHOOLS IN CALIFORNIA THAT ARE NOT
APPROVED BY THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION BE REQUIRED TO PUBLICLY
DISCLOSE SPECIFIC INFORMATION ON THEIR INTERNET WEB SITES,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES AND BAR
PASSAGE RATES FOR RECENT GRADUATES?
SYNOPSIS
The American Bar Association (ABA) accredits law schools
throughout the United States, including California law schools.
The State Bar of California (State Bar) also accredits law
schools in California. Finally, there are law schools in
California that are not accredited by either the ABA, or the
State Bar. These latter two groups: California State
Bar-accredited law schools and unaccredited law schools are the
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subject of this bill. According to the author, SB 1281 is a
consumer protection measure, needed to ensure that prospective
students are adequately informed about the law schools they
consider attending. ABA-accredited law schools are required to
have a 75% bar passage rate in three out of five years. State
Bar-accredited law schools are required to maintain a 40% bar
passage rate over five years, and are four-year programs.
Unaccredited law schools have no bar passage requirement and are
four-year programs. As explained in the analysis, the
rigorousness of the bar exam passage rate requirements seems to
have an inverse correlation to the rigorousness of information
disclosure requirements on a law school's internet website: the
higher the bar passage rate, the greater the disclosure
requirements. Arguably the reverse should be true.
To ensure that prospective students are able to make informed
decisions about which law schools to attend, this bill would
require California Bar-accredited law schools and unaccredited
law schools to post information on their Internet Web sites,
including bar passage data, tuition, fees, financial aid,
admissions data, employment outcomes for graduates, conditional
scholarships, enrollment data, faculty information, average
class size for required courses, and the number of clinical
offerings. The author proposes one minor clarifying amendment
to correct a drafting error. The bill is supported by the
Association of California Accredited Law Schools; the Center for
Public Interest Law - University of San Diego School of Law;
Public Advocates; Public Law Center; and Monterey College of
Law. There is no opposition on file.
SUMMARY: Requires certain information to be posted on the
Internet Web sites of law schools in California that are not
approved by the American Bar Association. Specifically, this
bill:
1)Requires any law school in California not approved by the
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American Bar Association to publicly disclose on its Internet
Web site, with a link from the Internet home page under
"admissions," information pertaining to all of the following:
a) Admissions data.
b) Tuition, fees, and financial aid.
c) Conditional scholarships.
d) Enrollment data.
e) Number of full-time and part-time faculty, technically
trained librarians, and administrators.
f) Average class size of each required course and the
number of clinical offerings.
g) Employment outcomes for graduates.
h) Bar passage data.
2)Requires the above disclosures to be published in a
standardized information report, allows the State Bar to
create a standardized information report template, and
requires the law schools to include the standardized
information report as part of their annual compliance report
to the State Bar.
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3)Requires a non-ABA approved law school to additionally
publicly disclose the following information on its Internet
Web site:
a) Refund policy;
b) Curricular offerings, academic calendar, and academic
requirements; and
c) Policy regarding the transfer of credit earned at
another institution of higher education.
4)Requires a law school's transfer of credit policy to include
specific information about any transfer or articulation
agreements that the school may have with other colleges and
universities.
5)Requires all information that a law school reports,
publicizes, or distributes pursuant to the above requirements
shall be complete, accurate, and not misleading to a
reasonable law school student or applicant.
6)Requires that a law school shall use due diligence in
obtaining and verifying such information.
7)Defines relevant terms, including the following:
a) "Admissions data" means information from the most
recently enrolled fall semester class including the total
number of applications, the total number of accepted
students, and the 75th, 50th, and 25th percentile scores
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for the undergraduate grade point averages and law school
admission test scores of admitted students.
b) "Bar passage data" means the most current cumulative bar
pass rates defined and reported by the examining committee
of the State Bar.
c) "Employment outcomes for graduates" means the results of
a survey by the law school, taken three years after
graduation, that breaks down the employment rate of
graduates in each of the first three years after
graduation, including the rate of employment of graduates
in jobs where a Juris Doctor degree is required by the
employer and the rate of employment of graduates in jobs
where a Juris Doctor degree is an advantage in employment.
d) "Enrollment data" means information about the number of
students who are admitted to the school per class per year
for the past three years, the number of students who
transfer to and from the school per class per year for the
past three years, and the number of students who do not
continue to attend the school each year for the past three
years on either a voluntary or involuntary basis.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Provides that the State Bar's highest priority is protection
of the public, and, whenever the protection of the public is
inconsistent with other interests sought to be promoted, the
protection of the public shall be paramount. (Business &
Professions Code Section 6001.1. All further statutory
references are to the Business & Professions Code, unless
otherwise indicated.)
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2)Requires that attorneys who wish to practice law in California
generally must be admitted and licensed in this state and must
be a member of the State Bar. (Cal. Const., art. VI, Sec. 9.)
3)Specifies requirements, in the State Bar Act, for an
individual to be certified by the Supreme Court for admission
and a license to practice law, including but not limited to,
having to pass the general bar examination, passing an
examination in professional responsibility, and completing
certain legal education in a law school, law office, or
judge's chambers. (Section 6060.)
4)Requires that law schools not accredited by the State Bar
shall provide a disclosure statement after the prospective
student pays application fees, but prior to the payment of
registration fees, and requires the prospective student to
acknowledge and sign the disclosure. (Section 6061.)
5)Requires the disclosures provided by unaccredited law schools
described above to include the following:
a) The passage rates of students who have taken the
first-year law student's examination. (Section 6061 (c).)
b) The passage rates of students who took the final bar
examination in the previous five years. (Section 6061
(c).)
c) The ratio of faculty to students. (Section 6061 (f).)
d) A statement that the education provided by the school
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may not satisfy the requirements of other states for the
practice of law. (Section 6061 (h).)
FISCAL EFFECT: As currently in print this bill is keyed
non-fiscal.
COMMENTS: The American Bar Association (ABA) accredits law
schools throughout the United States, including California law
schools. The State Bar of California (State Bar) also accredits
law schools in California. Finally, there are law schools in
California that are not accredited by either the ABA, or the
State Bar. These latter two groups: California State
Bar-accredited law schools and unaccredited law schools are the
subject of this bill.
Graduates from unaccredited law schools can become licensed to
practice law in the State of California if they pass the bar
examination and meet other criteria. Last month, the California
State Bar announced that just 35.7 % of all test takers passed
the February 2016 General Bar Examination, a historic low.
( http://calbar.ca.gov/AboutUs/News/ThisYearsNewsReleases/201625.a
spx ) But graduates of non- accredited law schools faced far
worse odds of passing the exam. Whereas graduates of
ABA-accredited law schools taking the Bar for the first time had
a 45% to 48 % chance of passing the examination and first-time
takers who are graduates of California Bar-accredited law school
had a 22% chance of passing the exam, first-time takers who
graduated from unaccredited law schools had the lowest passage
rate: just 13%. Repeat takers from unaccredited law schools
passed the exam at a rate of only 10%, meaning that 90% of those
test takers failed the exam.
Accreditation status
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First-timetakers Repeat takers
California ABA 48% 46%
Out-of-State ABA 45% 32%
CA State Bar Accredited (but not ABA) 22% 16%
Unaccredited: Fixed-Facility 13% 10%
Unaccredited: Correspondence 23% 11%
Unaccredited Distance Learning 44% 7%
These low rates of passage are even more appalling given the
fact that almost 90% of law students at unaccredited law schools
drop out of law school before taking the examination.
( http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-law-schools-2015072
6-story.html ) If only 10% of enrolled students graduate and
only 10% of them pass the bar exam, that means that there is
only a 1% chance of a student who enrolls at an unaccredited law
school becoming a lawyer. At least one unaccredited law school
owner admits that he purchases lists of students who score
poorly on the LSAT and recruits them to his school. (Ibid.)
Should Unaccredited Law Schools be Allowed to Operate in
California? According to Frank Wu, chancellor and dean of UC
Hastings College of Law, a nationally accredited campus, who was
quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, "Most jurisdictions
simply don't allow this kind of law school to exist at all.
Period. . . . California is very, very unusual."
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( http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-law-schools-2015072
6-story.html ) Given the fact that the students enrolled at such
schools tend to be overwhelmingly older and working class and
that students at these schools frequently take out loans to pay
their tuition, the unfulfilled promise of a legal career offered
by these schools can have tragic financial and personal
consequences for a large percentage of students who will never
become lawyers. At the very least, assuming such law schools
continue to exist, prospective students should have a better
idea of the miniscule odds that they will graduate from and
become lawyers after attending unaccredited schools.
Bar passage and disclosure requirements under current law.
ABA-accredited law schools are required to have a 75% bar
passage rate in three out of five years. State Bar-accredited
law schools are required to maintain a 40% bar passage rate over
five years, and are four-year programs. Unaccredited law
schools have no bar passage requirement and are four-year
programs.
ABA-accredited law schools. To be accredited by the ABA, an
institution must, among many other things, adhere to the
Internet disclosure requirements of the ABA, generating what is
called a Section 509 report. The requirements are robust. They
include the cost of the institution, diversity metrics,
attrition rates, as well as Bar passage rates. Prospective
students can obtain these data from the ABA website itself,
which is searchable by school or, importantly for the purposes
of this bill, from the home page of the institution itself.
( http://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/ )
For example, the University of San Diego's information is found
by clicking the tab on the home page titled "The School" and
then clicking on the second drop down menu item titled "ABA
Required Disclosures" with the following information:
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Bar Pass Data and Employment Outcomes
Applicants and current students should refer to the
Standard 509 Report (PDF) for the 3 most recent years of
bar pass statistics.
Applicants and current students should refer to our
Office of Career and Professional Development website to
view our nine-month employment data .
The ABA requires all of the required information to be posted
conspicuously and in a readily accessible location. At a
minimum, a school website's home page must prominently display a
way to connect directly to each of the mandated disclosures that
is labeled, "ABA Required Disclosures." The link must connect
the reader either to a place that provides all of the
disclosures or a direct link to each of them. In addition, the
information must be available by a link featured prominently on
the main page for admissions/prospective students. The
Employment Summary Reports must also be available by a link
featured prominently on the main page for career services.
California State Bar-accredited law schools. The Bar oversees
25 registered, unaccredited law schools in the state and 17
accredited law schools in California that are not approved by
the ABA. Under Guidelines promulgated by the State Bar, a
California Bar-accredited law school must include the following
statement, verbatim, in either its course catalog or student
handbook (electronic or hardcopy) and on a discrete page readily
accessible to the public found on the law school's website
entitled "Accreditation":
Study at, or graduation from, this law school may not qualify
a student to take the bar examination or be admitted to
practice law in jurisdictions other than California. A student
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who intends to seek admission to practice outside of
California should contact the admitting authority in that
jurisdiction for information regarding its education and
admission requirements.
( http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/portals/4/documents/Education/20
13_01_10_Accredited_Law_School_Guidelines_R.pdf ) In addition,
a California Bar-accredited law school must publish, on its
"Accreditation" webpage, "information "relating to the pass
rates of its graduates on the ten most recent administrations of
the California Bar Examination." The Bar requires this
information "to be published in one of the following ways: (i)
By means of posting an active link to the California Bar
Examination "Statistics" page of the State Bar's website; or,
alternatively; (ii) By means of posting the pass rates of its
graduates as those published on the State Bar's website."
(Guideline 2.3 (D), adopted effective January 1, 2013.)
These requirements seem to make little sense. If a prospective
student wants to know the school's Bar exam passage rate, the
prospective student may have a difficult time finding it and may
not look under "Accreditation." The Bar's guidelines do not
require school-specific disclosures to be provided on the
schools' website. ABA-accredited law schools, on the other
hand, are required to make standard disclosures on their
websites that enable prospective students to make informed
decisions about applying and attending the law schools.
Unaccredited law schools. These schools are required to
disclose the following information: the passage rates of
students who have taken the first-year law student's
examination; the passage rates of students who took the final
bar examination in the previous five years; the ratio of faculty
to students; and a statement that the education provided by the
school may not satisfy the requirements of other states for the
practice of law. (Section 6061.) As explained above, the
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rigorousness of the bar exam passage rate requirements seems to
have an inverse correlation to the rigorousness of information
disclosure requirements on a law school's internet website: the
higher the bar passage rate, the greater the disclosure
requirements. Arguably the reverse should be true. In terms of
pure statistics, prospective law students will have a much lower
chance of becoming a licensed (and employed) attorney by
attending a law school that is not ABA-accredited than by
attending an ABA-accredited law school and should be well and
fully informed about those odds before making a decision about
whether and where to attend law school and assume debt for
student loans of $100,000, or even more.
To ensure that prospective students are able to make informed
decisions about which law schools to attend, this bill would
require California Bar-accredited law schools and unaccredited
law schools to post information on their Internet Web sites,
including bar passage data, tuition, fees, financial aid,
admissions data, employment outcomes for graduates, conditional
scholarships, enrollment data, faculty information, average
class size for required courses, and the number of clinical
offerings.
Author's statement. According to the author, SB 1281 is a
consumer protection measure, needed to ensure that prospective
students are adequately informed about the law schools they
consider attending:
SB 1281 would require a law school that is not accredited by
the American Bar Association (ABA) to post on its Internet Web
site specified information, including tuition costs, class
sizes, number of faculty, bar passage data, and employment
outcomes for graduates. The bill would additionally authorize
the State Bar to develop a standard information reporting
template to aid the law schools in reporting the disclosures.
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Students attending a non-ABA accredited law school have a
significantly lower likelihood of passing the California Bar
exam. In February of 2015, a first-time student from an ABA
accredited law school had a 53.9% of passage. By comparison, a
first-time student attending a California Bar accredited law
school had a 30.3% passage rate, while a student attending an
unaccredited law school had a 35.4% passage rate.
The ABA's Standard 509 requires law schools to post important
disclosure information on their websites, including: bar
passage rates, tuition cost, class size, grants and
scholarships awarded, GPA and LSAT scores, demographic
information, curriculum, attrition rates, and faculty
information. The disclosures required under ABA Standard 509
are not only more robust than those required of non-ABA
accredited schools, but also more useful, as they are
available to a prospective student before beginning the
application process.
SB 1281 will allow perspective students to make "apples to
apples" comparisons between ABA accredited and non-ABA
accredited law schools in California. The required disclosures
in SB 1281 closely parallel those required under ABA Standard
509, and will provide prospective students with important
information to aid in selecting a law school that best meets
their educational needs.
Arguments in support: The Center for Public Interest Law at the
University of San Diego School of Law ("CPIL") writes that it
"supports SB 1281 (Block), a bill that will align much-needed
performance disclosures between those law schools that are
accredited by the American Bar Association ("ABA") and those
that are either entirely unaccredited by anyone or accredited by
the State Bar." Similarly, the Public Law Center and Public
Advocates write a joint letter of support, observing the
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following:
Unfortunately, there is a vast difference between the passage
rates of ABA accredited schools and non-ABA accredited
schools. . . . Despite this, unaccredited law schools
generally have the worst disclosures, while the programs with
higher rates of success illogically have much stronger
disclosure requirements. . . . This is counterintuitive, and
leaves many students of color and low-income students without
the essential information they need to make decisions about
their education. Disclosures for all institutions ought to be
comparable.
Minor clarifying amendment. To correct a drafting error, the
author proposes the following minor clarifying amendment. On
Page 3, at line 16: strike "transfer" and insert the following:
acceptance
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Association of California Accredited Law Schools
Center for Public Interest Law - University of San Diego School
of Law
Public Advocates
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Public Law Center
Monterey College of Law
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by:Alison Merrilees / JUD. / (916)
319-2334