CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Charlotte School of Law has been put on probation by the American Bar Association.
The ABA has directed the Charlotte School of Law to take the following remedial actions:
- The school must develop a written, reliable compliance plan by December 15th.
- The school must supply its admissions data and admissions methodology by December 15th.
- The school has five business days to report to all students that the school is on probation and post something on their website stating the school is on probation.
- The school is required to advise each student, in writing, the school’s graduates’ success rates for the North Carolina and South Carolina bar exams.
The school issued the following statement Wednesday evening on the ABA’s decision:
“In March 2014, an American Bar Association (ABA) evaluation team visited CharlotteLaw and subsequently filed a report that was largely positive. The following year, the accreditation committee asked for additional information in two areas: admissions standards and bar preparation. CharlotteLaw had already begun to work intensively to improve both and has continued that intensive work. The school is currently on probation with the ABA until our work is completed. CharlotteLaw has been and currently remains a fully accredited law school whose students can sit for any bar examination in the country and whose students can apply for and receive federal financial aid.
CharlotteLaw is confident that it can work through this period quickly because of the work that has been done already and the work that will be done by everyone in the CharlotteLaw community. In fact, our initial improvements have paid dividends. With respect to bar preparation in particular, our 2016 North Carolina first-time bar pass rate increased by 10.5 percentage points from February to July. We are doing the necessary hard work to see that this upward trajectory continues.
CharlotteLaw has already developed a thorough and detailed Reliable Plan–robustly backed by data and experience–that will guide our work going forward. Through this plan, we aim to return our incoming student profile to where it was previously and to boost bar outcomes to those levels as well. The Reliable Plan is a detailed, 50-page document, but the key elements are:
- Rapidly increasing the academic profile of our admitted classes.
- Strengthening our academic support programs, through a pre-matriculation program, core-course labs, Legal Methods, and other initiatives.
- Further strengthening our bar preparation, through the Intensive Bar Readiness courses in the curriculum and the schoolโs post-graduation bar preparation program.
- Counseling students so that they are fully informed about preparing (financially and otherwise) for the bar examination.
- Using, in our core curriculum, demonstrably effective preparation methods, such as quizzing, bar essay practice, and review of material in upper level courses.
CharlotteLawโs mission is to produce practice-ready attorneys in a demanding, yet supportive, student-centered learning environment that places strong emphasis on serving the underserved. CharlotteLaw students have ably served the greater Charlotte community for the past ten years, logging hundreds of thousands of hours in pro bono legal services. CharlotteLaw is proud to be the cityโs law school and we look forward to serving the city in a variety of ways for many years to come.”
The Charlotte School of Law was established in 2006 and was fully accredited by the ABA in 2011.
