Florida Coastal School of Law was a
private
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for-profit law school
A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction.
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in
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...
. It was established in 1996 and was the last operating of three for-profit law schools of the
InfiLaw System owned by Sterling Partners.
[ Because of funding and accreditation issues, the school closed its doors in 2021.][ ''U.S. News & World Report'' ranks Coastal Law 147-193, its lowest law school ranking. In July 2022, the school had the lowest Florida bar passage rate of all Florida law schools, at 31%.
]
Accreditation and closure
The school was originally accredited by the American Bar Association
The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...
(ABA) in 2002. In October 2017, the school received a letter from the ABA stating that Florida Coastal was not in compliance with several ABA academic standards, and requiring the school to submit a report by November 1, 2017, regarding the school's efforts to return to compliance, in advance of an appearance before the ABA Accreditation Committee in March 2018. The school's dean sent a letter to the student body, responding to the ABA letter, seeking to dispel what he said were "misconceptions" about the ABA's letter. At its May 2019 meeting, the ABA found Florida Coastal fully in compliance with the ABA standards. Florida Coastal remained a fully ABA accredited law school.
On May 15, 2020, the council of the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar met remotely and determined this school and nine others had significant noncompliance with Standard 316. This standard was revised in 2019 to provide that at least 75% of an accredited law school’s graduates who took a bar exam
A bar examination is an examination administered by the bar association of a jurisdiction that a lawyer must pass in order to be admitted to the bar of that jurisdiction.
Australia
Administering bar exams is the responsibility of the bar associa ...
must pass one within two years of graduation. The school was asked to submit a report by February 1, 2021; and, if the council did not find the report demonstrated compliance, the school would be asked to appear before the council at its May 2021 meeting. By August 2020, Florida Coastal School of Law was able to demonstrate compliance, asserting that 75% of its 2018 graduates had passed a bar exam, and the 2019 cohort was on track for similarly-qualifying results.
However, a new problem arose in Spring 2021 when the U.S. Department of Education
The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department ...
terminated the school's access to federal student financial aid and directed the school to file a teach-out plan with the ABA. The plan submitted in April was rejected by an executive committee of that ABA section, as lacking several required items and not providing sufficient detail as to other items. A revised plan was considered in May, but that plan was also rejected.[
The school resubmitted its application for ]Title IV
Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) covers the administration of the United States federal student financial aid programs.
American colleges and universities are generally classified with regard to their inclusion under Title IV, ...
eligibility, but the U.S. Department of Education turned down its request. Richard Cordray
Richard Adams Cordray (born May 3, 1959) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the COO of Federal Student Aid in the United States Department of Education. He served as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFP ...
, the department's federal student aid chief operating officer, said in a press release, "Florida Coastal School of Law operated recklessly and irresponsibly, putting its students at financial risk rather than providing the opportunities they were seeking. Our commitment is to stand up for all students and ensure their institutions are held to the standards our students and communities expect and deserve."[ The press release also said that school owner InfiLaw had relinquished its ownership, and audited financial statements for the school raised substantial doubt that it could continue operating.][
A teach-out plan was finally approved in June 2021, with the school to offer no further classes after the end of the Summer 2021 term.] Some students would transfer to other law schools, while others would attend classes elsewhere but graduate with Florida Coastal degrees.[ The school’s accreditation was to be continued until July 1, 2023 for the limited purpose of allowing currently-enrolled students to receive course credits at other accredited law schools.][
Notwithstanding that the school acknowledged that it was bound by the teach-out plan, Florida Coastal in July 2021 filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education alleging the agency acted arbitrarily and capriciously by terminating the school’s participation in the loan program.]
Academics
The median GPA
Grading in education is the process of applying standardized measurements for varying levels of achievements in a course. Grades can be assigned as letters (usually A through F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), as a percentage, or as a numbe ...
of students at Coastal Law was 2.92 in 2017 and 3.14 in 2020, and the median LSAT
The Law School Admission Test (LSAT; ) is a standardized test administered by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) for prospective law school candidates. It is designed to assess reading comprehension as well as logical and verbal reas ...
was 145 in 2017 and 150 in 2020.
In addition to its curriculum for a juris doctor
The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law
and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...
, Coastal Law offered an environmental law
Environmental law is a collective term encompassing aspects of the law that provide protection to the environment. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental legal principles, focus on the manage ...
certificate, sports law
"Unprintworthy" redirects are redirect pages on Wikipedia that aid online navigation, but would have little or no value as pointers to target articles in a hard-copy book. The name of a redirect may be unprintworthy for a number of reasons, incl ...
certificate, international comparative law certificate, family law certificate, and an advanced legal research and writing certificate. Additionally, Coastal Law offered accelerated dual degree programs, with Jacksonville University
Jacksonville University (JU) is a private university in Jacksonville, Florida. Located in the city's Arlington (Jacksonville), Arlington district, the school was founded in 1934 as a two-year college and was known as Jacksonville Junior College u ...
, that allowed students to complete a juris doctor and a M.B.A.
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as account ...
or a M.P.P. in four years.
Awards
* In 2010, Coastal Law was the recipient of the American Bar Association
The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...
E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award.
*In 2011, the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid
The Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, JALA, developed during the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression and the recession of 1937 out of a group of attorneys who organized to provide pro bono legal services to those who could not affor ...
(JALA) awarded Coastal Law the Robert J. Beckham Equal Justice Award for its partnership with JALA and its commitment to pro bono legal aid to the Jacksonville community.
* In 2013, the National Jurist ranked Coastal Law among the top innovative law schools.
* In 2014, Coastal Law made the American Bar Association's "Top Ten List" of law schools teaching the technology of legal practice.
*In 2015, the National Jurist gave Coastal Law an "A+ or A" for being one of the twenty best law schools for practical training.
Bar passage rate
The Florida Bar
The Florida Bar is the integrated bar association for the state of Florida. It is the third largest such bar in the United States. Its duties include the regulation and discipline of attorneys. The Florida Bar is also responsible for the governi ...
passage rate of Coastal Law graduates, compared to the average passing rate of all Florida law schools, is set forth below. In July 2022, the school had the lowest Florida bar passage rate of all Florida law schools, at 31%.
Ranking
''U.S. News & World Report'' ranks Coastal Law 147-193, its lowest law school ranking, the bottom quartile of all law schools in the United States.
Post-graduation employment and debt
Student debt
The average indebtedness of 2017 graduates who incurred law school debt was $160,942 (not including undergraduate debt), and 93.5% of 2017 graduates took on debt.
Employment outcomes
Coastal Law's Law School Transparency
Law School Transparency (LST) is a nonprofit consumer advocacy and education organization concerning the legal profession in the United States. LST was founded by Vanderbilt Law School graduates Kyle McEntee and Patrick Lynch. LST describes its m ...
score was 48.4%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2018 who obtained full-time long-term jobs practicing law within nine months of graduation, excluding solo practitioners.
Of those graduates who did obtain employment, in 2017 the median starting salary in the public sector was $42,250, and in the private sector it was $45,000.
Tuition and cost
The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Coastal Law for the 2019-20 academic year was $63,022. The Law School Transparency estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years was $217,870.
Extracurricular activities
Moot court
Each year, the University of Houston Law Center's Blakely Advocacy Institute ranks the top moot court programs in the United states by assessing the quality of the competition a school participated in, the size of the competitions, and the school's performance in those competitions. Florida Coastal in those rankings:
Mock trial
Coastal Law's mock trial team competed with law students across the state of Florida and the United States. The team members presented their case before a judge and jury. Acceptance into the team was based upon a competitive meritocratic process that judged the student's ability. Students were only eligible to try out for the mock trial team during their first year in law school.
Law review
The ''Florida Coastal Law Review'' was a legal journal edited by second and third year law students under the guidance of law professors. The journals are retrievable through the legal databases LexisNexis
LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer informa ...
and Westlaw
Westlaw is an online legal research service and proprietary database for lawyers and legal professionals available in over 60 countries. Information resources on Westlaw include more than 40,000 databases of case law, state and federal statute ...
. The journal was published three times a year. Students could join by being in the top 5% of their class or by submitting a high quality writing piece to law review.
Notable alumni
* Michele Rayner
* Matthew Shirk
*Inna Vernikov
Inna Vernikov (born August 30, 1984) is a Ukrainian-American attorney and politician serving as a member of the New York City Council for the 48th District. The Minority Whip of the City Council, her district includes the neighborhoods of Brig ...
References
External links
Official website
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Educational institutions established in 1996
For-profit universities and colleges in the United States
Independent law schools in the United States
ABA-accredited law schools in Florida
Universities and colleges in Jacksonville, Florida
Southside, Jacksonville
Universities and colleges in the Jacksonville metropolitan area
1996 establishments in Florida
Private universities and colleges in Florida
Defunct law schools
2021 disestablishments in Florida
Educational institutions disestablished in 2021