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Of Counsel
Thomas M. Cooley Law School Is Courting Florida
The nation’s biggest law school is about to open its first Florida campus.
Too Many Law Schools?
Last year, the number of applicants to the nation's law schools fell 11% — and it's looking like the number will fall again this year. In June, for example, 19% fewer students took the LSAT, the exam many law schools require for admission. The numbers beg the question: Does Florida really need another law school?
 Michael Freed |
Thomas M. Cooley Law School officials say they chose to open a campus in Riverview because they see opportunity in the Tampa Bay area, where the Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport has been the region's only law school. Royal Gardner, Stetson Law's interim dean, says "competition is a good thing," although he doesn't anticipate a recruiting battle between Cooley and Stetson, which saw a 6% boost in applications last year. Gardner says the two schools typically don't go after the same applicants: According to U.S. News' 2011 Best Law Schools rankings, the GPA of an average Stetson applicant is between 3.17 and 3.66, while the GPA of average Cooley applicants ranges from 2.61 to 3.35.
Pulling Rank
 Cooley's Riverview campus |
After years of low rankings in U.S. News & World Report's Best Law Schools list, Thomas M. Cooley Law School decided to come up with a list of its own. The U.S. News rankings focus on factors including acceptance rates and the GPAs and LSAT scores of applicants. That put Cooley among a group of Florida law schools ranked below 143, including Ave Maria Law School, Barry University, Florida A&M University, Florida Coastal School of Law, Nova Southeastern University and St. Thomas University. Florida schools ranking higher include the University of Florida (47), Florida State University (50), the University of Miami (77), Stetson University (110) and Florida International University (132).
Cooley's own ranking system focuses on factors more favorable to its inclusive philosophy, including total enrollment, minority enrollment, affordability of tuition, percentage of students getting grants or scholarships and the schools' total square footage. Its ranking places Cooley second, behind only Harvard in 2010.
The school has been sensitive to criticisms of the ranking. It filed a defamation suit against bloggers who criticized it. The school has also sued a blogger who claimed that Cooley law students have defaulted on their student loans at a 41% rate. The school says the actual default rate among its students has ranged from .7% to 2.2% over the last five years.
