Unaccredited Law School Offers Refunds

ANAHEIM — Seeking to assuage growing concern among students that they might not be able to practice law after graduation, Chapman University’s still unaccredited law school has taken an unusual step: It has offered students a refund.

Chapman officials said Wednesday that the offer was a response to students’ worries and not to the lawsuits filed by nine students accusing the school of misleading them about the chances for accreditation.

“This offer is not a settlement of a lawsuit,” said Dean Parham H. Williams Jr.

It is, Chapman President James L. Doti said, “a very generous offer.”

Packets sent to students this week outline the offer: Second- and third-year students who leave by Sept. 8 will get back all of their tuition, which is about $18,000 a year for full-time students. Third-year students who stay and graduate next year will get half their money back if the school is not accredited by then.

Students who accept the offer sign away their rights to sue or make other legal claims against the university.

The lawsuits pending against the school charge that it led them to believe accreditation was imminent.

Twice this year, the American Bar Assn. has rejected Chapman’s application for accreditation, citing concerns about lax grading and the quality of the faculty, among other things. ABA accreditation allows graduates to sit for the bar in any state. State accreditation would at least allow the students to practice in California, but Chapman doesn’t have that either.

The school has raised standards and conducted what officials call a rigorous self-evaluation in advance of a new application to be filed early next month. Word may come as early as February. The school also is preparing an application for state accreditation, but Williams does not expect that to come through before the school hears from the ABA.

Doti said discussions about the refund offer began before the lawsuits were filed this summer. If all 247 second- and third-year students withdrew, the university would have to refund about $4.46 million, but few believe that will happen.

So far, one student has applied for the offer, Williams said.

And there is a degree of loyalty to the school among the students, who credit Williams’ arrival in March with boosting morale and shaping up the program. Williams, a former dean at the University of Mississippi, replaced founding Dean Jeremy Miller, who stepped down to return to teaching.

Bill Guzik, president of the Student Bar Assn., said that among the several students he talked to Wednesday, none had decided whether to accept the offer.

“It’s kind of a wait-and-see attitude,” he said. “Each wants to read it. It just sounds like a good thing and shows a lot of good faith from the trustees.”

Guzik, a third-year student who says he is confident the school will be accredited next year, said he does not plan to drop out now, but will consider the option of a 50% refund if the school isn’t accredited by the time he graduates.

Third-year student Scott Burkhart of Laguna Hills said he will study the offer but was inclined to turn it down.

“I’m confident they will get [accreditation],” he said. “When I started school, I knew the risks and I think the school is definitely making strides.”

Stephen Cooper, a lawyer representing his son and several other students in a lawsuit against the school, called the offer an “insult to the intelligence” of the students. He criticized the waiver of legal claims, which leaves students who don’t sign it in jeopardy of graduating from an unaccredited school, unable to practice and unable to sue the school.

“It validates our lawsuit. If they didn’t do something wrong, why are they doing this?” he said.

Cooper said he believed the university was taking advantage of the students.

“It’s undue influence for students to try to negotiate with them. It’s unfair because they are not lawyers. They are not going to spend money to go see a lawyer. They are not explaining in the contract what exactly they are giving up. Basically [the law school] is offering them less than they are legally entitled to now.”

Williams, though, defended the waiver as “fair to the university and fair to the students.” Students can get their money back and “the university doesn’t expose itself to future lawsuits,” he said.