Tuition Refunds Offered to Chapman Law Students

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 Wednesday said the offer, which legal experts called unprecedented, was a response to students’ worry about their futures and not to lawsuits filed by nine students. The lawsuits accuse the school of leading them to believe accreditation was imminent.

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

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.

James P. White, the American Bar Assn.’s consultant on legal education, said he had never heard of a school making such an offer.

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 exam 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 Dean 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 suits were filed this summer.

Four of the lawsuits, filed Tuesday, accuse the school of fraudulently withholding information about bar exam qualifications and misstating the status of its state accreditation effort.

Attorney Charles Greaves, who represents four of the students who are suing, said he met with law school officials several weeks ago and raised the possibility of offering refunds or other relief to avoid litigation. He said his clients decided to sue because they felt the school was delaying a decision, but that he believes they will reject the offer and go forward with the suit.

If Chapman doesn’t “get accredited by June, they are going to have serious problems from students who don’t take the offer and don’t take the release [from legal liability] agreement,” Reaves said. He represents 20 other students weighing their options, he said.

“For those students who don’t bite and want to reserve their right to sue, the school is going to have significant problems.”

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 June with boosting morale and shaping up the program. Williams, a former dean at the University of Mississippi and at Samford University’s Cumberland Law School in Alabama, replaced the founding dean, Jeremy Miller, who stepped down to return to teaching.

Bill Guzik, chairman 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 would 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.”

Greg Goodrich of Huntington Beach, a part-time student entering his third year, said, “Some students, the great minority, may have a ‘sky-is-falling’ attitude, but in reality their thoughts are very premature. I don’t think they have really thought it out. I think they are under law school stress, and to have this hanging overhead is just too much.”

But Stephen Cooper, a lawyer representing his son and three 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.

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

Cooper said he believes the university is 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.”

The school has taken steps to toughen its admissions and academic policies. In the seven months since its initial rejection, the median entrance test score of new students has increased from 145 to 151.

Dismissal policies also have been stiffened. After its first year, only one student had been dismissed, and students could remain for three semesters with subpar grades.

Now, a student with a grade-point average below 1.6 after the first semester will be dismissed. Those students with a GPA below 2.0 after two semesters will be dismissed.