Vote on Law School’s Accreditation Is Tabled

The American Bar Assn. has shelved its vote to pull the national accreditation of an Orange County law school, but what happens next is unclear.

Darryl DePriest, the ABA’s general counsel, said Monday that the group will send a letter to Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, but he wouldn’t disclose its contents.

Don Daucher, Western State’s attorney, said he knew nothing of the letter, although he said the two sides had discussed a settlement. He would not provide details.

Last week, a federal judge in Santa Ana issued a preliminary injunction that said the ABA could vote to drop its provisional accreditation of Western State but couldn’t implement the results. The two sides are scheduled to appear before U.S. District Court Judge Gary Taylor on Friday.

The for-profit school claims the ABA violated its rules in moving to remove Western State’s accreditation.

The absence of an ABA vote and the judge’s preliminary injunction may have made a trial on some issues unnecessary, Daucher said.

“If they [the ABA] decide they would follow a more reasonable interpretation of their own rules, a large part of what we would be trying would be unnecessary,” he said.

But the attorney and campus representatives contend the controversy has severely hurt the law school’s recruiting and has pushed some of its best students to transfer.

ABA approval is the highest accreditation a law school can receive. It not only boosts a school’s prestige, but also allows graduates to take the bar exam anywhere in the country.

Western State received provisional ABA accreditation in 1998, which usually leads to full approval within five years. An ABA spokeswoman said no one at the group can recall a school losing its provisional status.

Daucher has indicated Western State would accept an extension of its provisional accreditation as part of a settlement. Given more time, he said, the school would continue to improve its Law School Aptitude Test scores and bar pass rate, and lower its dropout rate, three factors that drew ABA concern.