Law School at Chapman Is Certified by Bar Assn.

Chapman University’s fledgling law school, overcoming a rocky start that led to tuition refunds for dissatisfied students, joined the ranks of the nation’s elite Monday as delegates of the American Bar Assn. certified that it has met rigorous academic standards.

The decision to grant provisional accreditation to the Chapman University School of Law ended a protracted, back-and-forth struggle. The university opened the school in 1995 amid hopes of winning speedy accreditation only to be rejected twice last year.

“It’s wonderful news, historic news,” said university President Jim Doti. “ABA accreditation is a seal of approval from an outside organization. It’s not an easy task to reach accreditation so early.”

Doti added that no one would now doubt that the institution of higher education known until 1991 as Chapman College deserves to be called a university.

Parham Williams, who became dean of the law school in June with a mandate to stiffen academic standards, said he was ecstatic.

“It’s a great relief,” Williams said by telephone from Nashville, where ABA delegates were meeting. “But we also recognize that this is the first step in a journey that will take Chapman’s law school to a position of influence in American legal education.”

The law school, quartered for now in Anaheim, is expected to move to the university’s main campus in Orange next January. It is one of two Orange County law schools with the prestigious ABA accreditation. Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa is the other.

Chapman’s becomes the 181st law school nationwide recognized by the ABA and the 18th in California. The accreditation, which hinges on the quality of a school’s faculty, students, library and other standards, enables graduates to sit for a bar exam anywhere in the country.

The voice vote taken by more than 500 ABA delegates came late Monday, said Angela Thomas, media relations director for the ABA.

Word was slow to spread among law students Monday. Some were reluctant to comment until they heard it straight from their teachers and deans. But Bill Guzik, a third-year student from Newport Beach, said, “This is the best news I could have had. I think we all took a big gamble to come to Chapman, and it paid off big-time. Not only am I able to practice in California, which is what I plan to do, but I can practice in any state now.”

The law school’s accreditation is provisional for two years--a standard procedure--until full certification. But Chapman’s law graduates will have the benefits immediately.

Last year, Chapman ran into difficulty with its first petition and was forced to take several steps to upgrade the school, including improvements to its library and imposition of a stiffer grading curve.

After the initial disappointing news, at least 48 students accepted tuition refunds, a costly step for a university that charges about $18,000 in tuition a year.

Williams estimated that the refunds cost the university about $1.25 million in all, which he said ABA analysts told him was unprecedented.

“It showed the university was concerned about its students and about its own integrity,” Williams said. The refunds had another benefit important to the ABA: They raised the median LSAT score--the standard achievement test for law school admissions--of the student body. Those who opted to jump had lower scores overall.

Not all dissidents took the refund. Thirty-one other students or former students took their complaints to court, according to a university attorney, alleging they had been mistreated. The fate of those lawsuits is now unclear. The lawyer representing the university in the matter, Duke Wahlquist, said Monday they are still pending.

For the more than 190 students that stuck with the law school, the accreditation was expected to be an occasion for celebration. Fifty-eight are expected to participate in the school’s first graduation ceremony in May.

ABA recognition for Chapman was also a boon for the Orange County legal community, 10,000 lawyers strong, which has been pushing for more top law schools to develop local talent. Until Whittier moved to Costa Mesa last year, the county had gone nearly two decades without an ABA-accredited school.