Law Schools

Even Golden Gate Law's Exit Strategy Has A Low Passage Rate

So much for finishing strong.

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facepalm face palm mistake lawyer partner associate

Come on, man.

Hello again, gang. Remember about a week ago when I said you probably shouldn’t be too worried about Golden Gate Law’s current class because it recently submitted an exit plan to the ABA that was presumably more substantial than a shrug emoji? Welp, turns out the plan wasn’t up to par:

Golden Gate University School of Law’s teach-out plan has been rejected by the American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar…[T]he ABA council rejected the plan because it “did not include sufficient detail relating to the operation of a teach-out.” A revised plan can be submitted by Jan. 12.

University officials “were surprised and disappointed to see that the ABA decided to post this public notice,” according to an email to the ABA Journal on Friday. “We strongly object to this posting.

The real victims here are the students. You’d think now would be one of the easiest periods in the profession’s history for an administration to organize a teach-out — not having widespread Zoom capability in 1901 meant that the administration would have had to find a brick-and-mortar school to send their students to. It looks like Golden Gate wasn’t even able to convince an ABA-accredited law school to let their students ride out the final years of their JD in the the living room. If you’re going to force students to learn the rule against perpetuities, the least you can do is figure out which school they’ll be vesting in when your time is up.

Update: Golden Gate has responded:

Please allow us to set the record straight. As we’ve noted, the teach-out plan was submitted months ago and meant to be provisional as the university continued to evaluate all options, including continuation of the JD program. The discontinuation decision was formally made only last week, and GGU has been deep in discussion with potential teach-out partners to ensure all GGU JD students’ path to completion of their ABA-accredited degree with their existing scholarships and we plan to announce these partners as soon as those agreements are finalized. We will have teach-out partners.

Also, please note that the ABA has posted a notice on its website when a teach-out plan – provisional or not – is not approved and then posted again when a revised plan is approved soon thereafter. It’s far from ideal – and above all can be misleading for students without this context of the ABA’s process – but it is the approach they’ve taken.

ABA Legal Ed Council Rejects Golden Gate University’s Plan To End Its JD Program [ABA Journal]

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Earlier: Golden Gate Law Will Not Be Handing Out Any More JDs

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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