Western State Law School Fails : American Bar Assn. Refuses to Grant Accreditation

After a three-year campaign to upgrade its faculty, facilities and entrance standards, Western State University College of Law has been refused accreditation by the American Bar Assn., college officials confirmed Friday.

Officials of the privately owned college, with 1,500 students on campuses in San Diego and Fullerton, will seek reconsideration and hope to meet with the ABA’s Committee on Accreditation late in June, said James M. Brower, dean of the Fullerton campus.

“Except for one exception, law schools have not been accredited by the ABA on their first attempt during the last 10 years,” Brower said.

A spokeswoman for the ABA in Chicago said accreditation matters are confidential and declined to specify what its committee found deficient at Western State. Brower also declined to specify, saying “they just want us to do a little better” in a number of areas that are “kind of across-the-board.”

He also typified the ABA’s concerns as subjective. “When they say some things are ‘insufficient’ or ‘inadequate,’ you can’t know what that is exactly.”

Western State is accredited by the California Bar Assn. and the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges, qualifying its graduates to apply for the bar in California, Indiana and Georgia.

ABA accreditation would permit graduates to apply for the bar in any state. “The university picks up more recognition and prestige that way, and it enhances the opportunities for our students,” Brower said.

With that in mind, Western State officials filed a letter of intent with the ABA in 1984, saying it would apply for accreditation in the near future.

The school, which was founded in Orange County 20 years ago as a night school in a rented building, reduced the size of its classes, tripled the size of its faculty (now 33 full-time members), raised faculty salaries and tripled the size of its library, Brower said.

It also raised entrance standards and now refuses to accept students with less than three years of college or who have been dismissed by another law school.

The loss of tuition payments from students who would have been admitted under the old standards is the biggest part of the $4.5 million that college officials estimate that their upgrading has cost.

Brower said word of the ABA’s denial came about two weeks ago. He said college officials expect to apply for reconsideration next week.

He said school officials are “putting together increased commitments” and gave as an example plans to build a new library on the Fullerton campus at 1111 N. State College Blvd., where 70% of the students attend.

The school already has paid for preliminary design of an expanded library, Brower said. “The question is, how far do we have to go in building it before we get provisional approval?”