Thomas Cooley Law School's Reputation Is In The Dumps... So It's Thinking About Changing Its Name
from the beats-actually-improving dept
We've written a few times about the Thomas M. Cooley law school -- a 4th tier, bottom of the barrel law school known for letting in a very high percentage of the people who apply... and also for coming up with its own ranking system (which includes "total volumes in the library" and "total law school square footage" among other factors) that says it's one of the best law schools in the world. If you value square footage, I guess. It's also known for suing a bunch of its own students for being critical of the school.Of course, our friends over at Above the Law have written many, many, many more posts about the somewhat infamous Thomas M. Cooley Law School, and the name has become something of a punchline among lawyers and legal followers. So what's a law school with the reputation of a joke to do when faced with the fact that anyone with a Google account can find out about its actual standing in the world? Why, change its name, of course.
Apparently, the law school may be ditching the name of the former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court with a sort of merger-but-not-merger with Western Michigan University, that would allow Cooley to take on Western Michigan's name in exchange for... well, that part's not clear. The two would remain financially separate, but might have students share certain services and classes.
The law school would get a new name but it would maintain separate finances and leadership under the proposal that leaders are considering. Details are still being ironed out, but the alliance could open the door for Cooley law students to take classes at Western Michigan University and utilize its student services, and vice versa, said Associate Dean for External Affairs James Robb. The partnership could also allow faculty to engage in interdisciplinary teaching and research, he said.WMU's reason for doing this has something to do with the fact that it already has a medical school. Yes, I said medical school. What does that have to do with anything? Your guess is as good as mine.
"The result of such an affiliation with Cooley would make our University one of fewer than 90 universities in the nation to have both a law school and school of medicine," notes WMU President John M. Dunn. "The benefits that accrue from that distinction would pay dividends to our students, faculty and staff for years to come. The opportunity is made even more intriguing by the common mission and values of our two institutions."So, um, they could be better at... malpractice law? Forgive me, I'm just not seeing how that's a benefit. It sounds like WMU decided it needed a law school for the prestige part, but the way you do that is by starting a law school, not giving your name over to the joke of the law school world. And, as Above the Law points out in its post on this, it's not like this is about money from students, since Cooley will keep its finances separate (though, you wonder if there's possibly a payment involved in all of this, rather than a cut of the tuition fees). But if it's prestige WMU wants, a simple Google search would suggest that this sort of partnership probably won't bring very much.
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Filed Under: law schools, name changes, thomas m cooley law school
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Anybody checked WMU's Medical School Ranking?
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It's all about the correlation and the causation
...and that's the (perceived) benefit right there.
A few years back, here in Seattle there was a big kerfuffle going down about the owner of the Seattle SuperSonics, the local NBA team, selling the team to Oklahoma. One thing that a lot of people were annoyed about was that Seattle was about to go from being a city with three top-league sports teams (baseball, football, and basketball) to only having two.
If you look around the country at the cities with three such teams, and the cities with two such teams, the ones with three tend to be bigger and just generally "cooler" than the two-team cities, so the idea was that this was somehow diminishing Seattle in some way.
Of course, this is the correlation/causation arrow pointing in the wrong direction. The teams don't make the cities big and cool; bigger, cooler cities can afford more teams than smaller, less cool cities due to being bigger and cooler than them. And having our basketball team move out really hasn't changed Seattle all that much; it's still the same city it was when it left; just with less nasty traffic snarls on game nights.
If Western Michigan University is trying to acquire a law school alongside its med school "so that it can have both," you can bet that the same sort of thinking is in play here...
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Maybe the medical school is as bad as Cooley's law school
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please say it was this one
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Thanks
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Sorry to be
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ValueJet > Airtran > Southwest
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Re:
hahaha a rogue mercenary providing hired thug company named "Academi" because it's most likely to be disassociative of their verified and testified and acknowledged criminal activity. (They've paid out almost $50 million in "fines" (read that payoffs to the fed so they could continue operating and continue getting contract work from the fed)...
:-)
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I mean it doesn't take a rocket scientist (I am pretty sure no rocket scientists sit on the board at WMU but I could be wrong) to do some basic Googling to discover the overwhelming volume of complaints about the hack law school...
So yeah I am betting on the belief someone got paid off to make this happen.
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Coward
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Sounds Like A Personal Issue
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Thomas M. Cooley Law School Alumni
In addition, Thomas M. Cooley Law School is one of the larger law schools in the U.S. meaning that it a graduate of the school has a larger network of alumni to refer work to and from.
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Some people just cannot cut it
If this is a hack law school, we must have alot of people wanting to be hacks. I use to agree that Cooley was an easy law school because they allow almost every applicant to attend. But after learning that it also has a VERY HIGH rate of people not cutting the grade and being asked to leave, I realized that they just give everyone a chance to try to earn a degree- IF you aren't up to speed they quickly can and will show you the door. Not saying they do not help the struggling- just that they have no problem letting the weaker ones know it may be futile to stay and they should seek out another EASIER school or career path.
I agree with the Alumni post and the recent Wolverine grad- Cooley has put out some of the best lawyers. OF course you can look at the ones who did not take the advice and leave because they were just above the required 2.0 grade. Those seem to be the ones, like the others from other law schools, who can not pass a state bar and who file suits blaming the school for not getting them a job or preparing (ie teaching them)for the bar. Cooley teaches the law- unlike other school that teach the bar. Maybe that's why Cooley gets a share of the super lawyers...
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Cooley
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Cooley's All Right Afterall
To agree with an above post, Cooley admits A LOT of students, and is definitely a business. However, the school does through its faculty, i.e., professors, does an incredibly efficient job of weeding out those students who want to practice law "for the money" or because it seems like a cool job. I was fortunate to work for the school in a student related job, and was in regular contact with both processors and alumni, and was able to truly appreciate the quality education that Cooley provides. For example, Cooley requires it's full-time professors to have practiced a certain amount of years in their field before being considered for a position. In fact, my property professor and advisor (now my mentor) was a real estate guru in Chicago making butt-loads of money decided to venture to Cooley and serve as wonderful professor when he had opportunities to do whatever he wanted to (and still does).
I'm not trying to say Cooley is Ivy League, or anything close. According to the "rankings" systems (including Cooley's bogus one), Cooley is consistently a very low ranked school. I equate this to being the nerdy kid or loser in high school. It's easy to hate on the "nerdy" or "loser"when in reality, Cooley is not all that bad.
Oh and a side note, I was awarded my civil court clerkship out of five applicants. It's funny how this "Cooley" student landed a pretty sweet clerkship over an Indiana and Notra Dame law student.
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Re: Cooley's All Right Afterall
Shit school. I would be embarrassed to display a degree from this substitution, if you choose to call it that.
This name change is not exactly like putting lipstick on a pig; this name change is like putting lipstick on a piece of rotting shit. That is Cooley.
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Re: Re: Cooley's All Right Afterall
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A Question on Motive
Rather, it makes one wonder why such strong criticism exists. Isn't it true that we tend to take aim at personalities that have somehow injured us in the past. A more interesting question is this: "What person or past event associated with Cooley injured Mr. Masnick, thus, compelling him to write such criticisms?"
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Mike the innovator/business owner
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Only 32.62% of Cooley’s 2012 graduates had found full time permanent jobs that requires a JD within 9 months of graduation,19% were completely unemployed and searching for work and 9% simply went missing. The other 50% were in some form of temporary employment or employment that did not require a law degree. Note this is self-reported, so there is a good chance that the actual numbers are a good deal worse. http://employmentsummary.abaquestionnaire.org/ (generate the report for Thomas M. Cooley Law School).
A Federal Court has said that its likely that Cooley reports inaccurate salary data for its graduates. http://abovethelaw.com/2013/10/cooley-law-forgets-that-truth-is-a-defense-to-defamation/.
Of Cooley graduates taking the California bar in July 2013, only 13% of first time takers passed, 16% of second time taker.
http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/4/documents/gbx/JULY2013STATS.012214_R.pdf (page 9)
California is hard. What about Michigan?
43% of Cooley grads taking the Michigan bar failed the July 2013 sitting. That was the worst in the State. http://sbmblog.typepad.com/sbm-blog/2013/11/michigan-bar-exam-pre-appeals-pass-rate-is-60-percent.ht ml.
A Cooley gradates hated the school so much he put up a blog:
http://thomas-cooley-law-school-scam.weebly.com/
Cooley sued him to get him to take it down. Cooley lost. http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_skills/2013/04/cooley-law-loses-bid-to-unmask-critical-blogge r.html
You should read that blog.
Just some *facts* that might want to make you read the pro-Cooley trolls above in a more critical light.
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Cooley Law School
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Been There - Done That
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Help...
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