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Welcome Message from the President
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Here We Go Again
When Cooley was fully approved by the American Bar Association in New Orleans in 1978, our friends on the Council couldn’t resist tossing out one more brickbat. They added a new procedural requirement to the effect that when a school receives full approval, its first sabbatical re-inspection would take place in three and a half years instead of the traditional seven years.
And so it was that we had yet another visit from the American Bar Association in 1981.
The visit took place on March 9, 10 and 11. The inspection team seemed friendly enough at the outset. It was chaired by Leigh Taylor, president and dean of Southwestern University, an independent law school like Cooley. Among the other members was Bill Wilks, dean of the Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, another very old, very well regarded independent college of law.
However sanguine our expectations, the visitors hewed to the ABA’s long standing negative outlook. On July 6, 1981, I wrote to Dean James P. White, Consultant to the American Bar’s Section of Legal Education as follows:
"Dear Dean White:
The 90 page reinspection report enclosed with your letter of June 30, 1981, was delivered to me at my home over the holiday weekend.
Given that the accreditation committee will meet on July 10 through 12, and given that mail delivery should take two or three days, it is apparent that Cooley Law School has 24 hours to respond to any matters in the report which it feels inaccurately portray our school.
Dean Keith J. Hey set out this morning to attend a long-planned family reunion in Iowa. Thus the burden falls on me to protect the record.
Before doing so, I must comment on the patent unfairness of the procedure in this instance.
Your letter of June 30, 1981 invites us to submit: (1) correction of errors; (2) new materials; and (3) matters of disagreement " … for consideration by the Accreditation Committee when it reviews the report."
Indeed, Procedural Rule II (13) requires that a written inspection report be submitted to the chief executive officer and to the dean of the inspected school for confirmation of the accuracy of the facts stated in the report.
Moreover, Rule II (9) provides that the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar …"shall not consider any evidentiary or other matter which has not first been presented to the accreditation committee…"
The new language of Rule1 makes these factors even more important. That rule now reads that an affected institution may appeal an adverse determination to the council, but in the absence of such an appeal, the council " … shall act to recommend the resolution to the House of Delegates."
I went on to point out that their policies allow the accreditation committee to act without waiting for the school’s reply, and that we had no right to appear before the accreditation committee in connection with any matter affecting the status of the school.
I then concluded:
"Taken together with the provisions of Rule III authorizing the chairperson of the accreditation committee to appoint a hearing commissioner and require a Rule IV hearing whenever " … evidence indicates conditions, practices or actions in possible violation of the standards …" and considering the provision of Rule IV (6) that an inspection report shall be considered as evidence, it is abundantly clear that Cooley Law School would permit the conclusions of the Reinspection Committee to go unchallenged at its grave peril.
To put it succinctly and in terms familiar to lawyers, it appears that we might well be bound over for trial without a preliminary examination, based upon written evidence, to which we are required to respond in writing but given no time to do so.
I will attempt here to provide a written response within the severe limitations of time.
At the same time, I hereby request on behalf of Cooley Law School, an opportunity personally to appear before the Accreditation Committee at such time as the Reinspection Report shall be received and reviewed by the committee for any purpose whatsoever."
That said, I added nine more pages of corrections, comments, and contradictions of the inspection report. It was time to dig in again, and circle the wagons.
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This Page was last updated on:
07/21/2006