| Thomas M. Cooley Law School | |
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| Established | 1972 |
| Type: | Private |
| Staff: | 95 full-time faculty, over 100 adjunct faculty |
| Students: | 3,252 (2006)[1] |
| Location | Lansing, Michigan, United States |
| Campus: | Urban |
| Website: | http://www.cooley.edu |
Thomas M. Cooley Law School, located in Lansing, Michigan, is the largest law school as measured by full-time and part-time student enrollment in the United States. Cooley is a private law school unaffiliated with a university. The law school has struggled with reputability, being known as an "open admissions" law school for those who could not otherwise attend ABA-standard approved legal institutions.
History
Named to honor the contribution and memory of Thomas M. Cooley, a nineteenth-century jurist and Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court who was prominent both within and outside of Michigan, the law school was established in 1972 by former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Thomas E. Brennan.
American Bar Association Approval
The law school was provisionally approved in 1975, gaining full approval in 1978 by the American Bar Association. In July 2006 the American Bar Association granted Cooley's request to offer full J.D. programs at each of its branch campuses, making it the only law school in the country to offer full J.D. programs at three distinct campuses.
Degree programs
Although most students study toward earning the degree of Juris Doctor (J.D.), Cooley also confers a Master of Laws degree (LL.M.) in Tax or Intellectual Property and cooperates in offering a joint-degree J.D./Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) program as well as a J.D./Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.). Cooley operates programs allowing ABA-approved foreign study credit in Toronto, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition, students can select from several approved "concentrations" or areas of specialized legal study, such as General Practice, Litigation, Business Transactions, and Public and International Law, within which there are 4 sub-concentrations: Administrative Law, Constitutional Law and Civil Rights, Environmental Law, and International Law. To earn the Doctor of Jurisprudence or Juris Doctorate degree (also called the "J.D."), students must complete 90 credit hours at the law school. To graduate, students must take 21 required courses that comprise 63 of the 90 required credit hours for graduation. Required courses include traditional first-year courses such as Torts, Contracts, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Property, and Research & Writing. Students also must complete required courses in Taxation, Secured Transactions, Evidence, Business Organizations, Advanced Research & Writing, and other courses. Additionally, students must complete a 3- to 10-credit unpaid externship in a legal office under the supervision of an experienced attorney.
Satellite campuses
Cooley has satellite campuses in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Auburn Hills, Michigan. According to the ABA, the median GPA for admitted applicants is 3.05, and the median LSAT score is 147.
Clinical programs
The law school offers clinical programs such as the Cooley Innocence Project, one of several Innocence Projects that are nationally recognized in the U.S. for helping free those wrongfully incarcerated. Such programs are provided to innocent, incarcerated persons in obtaining DNA evidence and legal advocacy to overturn wrongful convictions. Cooley also offers an elder law clinic, Sixty Plus, Inc., which provides free legal services to area senior citizens.
Nontraditional students
Cooley was the first ABA-approved law school in the nation to have an officially recognized weekend program allowing students to earn a law degree by attending class on Saturdays and Sundays only. The law school is currently one of the few accredited law schools in the U.S. that does not require applicants to hold a bachelor's degree as a prerequisite to admission. The law school has developed a formula and methodology for those wanting to apply without a bachelor’s degree.[2]
"In corde hominem [sic] est anima legis"
The law school's Latin motto was written during the 1970s by former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Thomas E. Brennan with the help of his pastor at the time. Judge Brennan originally described the meaning as "The spirit of the law is in the heart of Man" When women in a newly formed female organization called the Cooley Action Team brought to his attention that the motto should also refer to "the hearts of women," Justice Brennan responded that based on his Latin experience from high school the Latin word for men and humankind were identical.[3] Judge Brennan's formulation of the motto remains in place today.
Notable current and former faculty
- Spencer Abraham, former U.S. Senator and Secretary of Energy
- Hon. John W. Fitzgerald former chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court[4]
- Richard Henke, American Law Institute Member
- Joe Kimble, Research and Writing scholar and author of Lifting the Fog of Legalese: Essays on Plain Language
- Philip J. Prygoski, constitutional law expert and author, American Law Institute Member
- John P. Rooney, property law expert
- John N. Scott, author of Evidence Illustrated: Cases to Illustrate How All the Rules Work[5]
- In 2007, Professor Joseph Kimble won the Burton Awards for Legal Achievement for his work as a drafting consultant for the newly rewritten Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. [10]
Notable alumni
- Kelly Askin - J. Skelly Wright Fellow - Yale Law School
- Chris Chocola - Former U.S. Congressman
- John Engler - Former Governor of Michigan
- Anthony Gair - New York attorney who represented the family of Amadou Diallo in a case that spurred reform of the New York City Police Department.
- Bart Stupak - U.S. Congressman
- Steve Stobbs - Associate Judge Third Judicial Circuit (Madison County, IL)
Rankings and reputation
Judging the Law Schools compares all accredited law schools based on a wide variety of objective criteria identified as significant to consumers by the American Bar Association's Council of the Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the organization that does the accrediting. According to the ABA’s Council, the Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools "is designed to provide prospective law school applicants with basic information in a simple format that will facilitate comparisons among schools." The ranking in Judging the Law Schools is based solely upon the ABA’s basic information, and it is now available online and can be used interactively. Viewers can search the current version according to school or state, or by any of the 32 factors used in the rankings, such as enrollment numbers, tuition, library data, the number of applicants, LSAT scores, and minority enrollment. The online version can be found at http://www.cooley.edu/rankings. Thomas M. Cooley Law School was recently selected the 2006 winner of the E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award as selected by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Professionalism, for Cooley's program "Creating a Culture of Professionalism in Law School: The Thomas M. Cooley Law School Experience."[6]
Statistics
- President: Don LeDuc
- Accredited to the American Bar Association
- Accredited to the Higher Learning Commission
- Accredited to the Michigan Department of Education
- Accredited to the Michigan Board of Law Examiners
- Motto: In corde hominem est anima legis ("The spirit of the law is in the heart of Man")
- Alumni: over 11,000
- Acceptance rate: 60.8%[7]
- Median accepted student GPA: 3.01[8]
- Median accepted student LSAT: 149[9]
- Student-to-faculty ratio: 23.6 to 1
- Attrition rate: 1st Year - 23.1%; 2nd Year - 11.4%[10]
- Employment placement rate: 82%, 2005 graduates
- Number of states in which graduates are employed: 51 (including the District of Columbia)
- Michigan bar exam passage rate: 74% [11]
- 64% of the law school's student body are from outside Michigan
- Average starting salary: $49,000
- Tuition: $25,950, full time; $15,570, part time
- Percentage of students receiving grants: 55.8%
- 2004-2005 enrollment: 475, full time; 2,393, part time
- Enrollment by gender: Men: 59%, full time, 50%, part time; Women: 41%, full time, 50% part time
- The average indebtedness of graduates who incurred law school debt is estimated at $75,700
