 For the truncated version: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202518943064&Ripping_a_critics_mask_off&slreturn=1 What was your initial reaction when you learned that you were being sued? Did you ever think that you might be sued as a result? Absolutely not. Initially I was almost certain it was a Cooley defender attempting to play a prank on me. My blog seemed to attract mostly bitter Cooley students angry about anyone speaking ill of their school despite not being able to identify anything false or inaccurate in my blog post. However, when I went on the Internet to find Cooley proudly and prominently displaying news of their lawsuits on their website I was just kind of shocked. My website was confined to numerous links for the factual material and I added some of my personal experiences, opinions, and a fair amount of biting commentary. I did not ever contemplate that my blog would be the subject of a lawsuit, or that anything contained in it would be alleged to be “defamatory”. I found it interesting that Cooley’s same PR team decided to leave out the breaking news of it being sued later the same summer (August 2011) in a class action lawsuit for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and deceptive business practices for $250,000,000 by Cooley grads. Why did you start the Cooley scam blog to begin with? What did you hope to achieve? I decided to create the Thomas M. Cooley Law School Scam blog after Cooley issued a press release this past February 2011 claiming they were the the second best law school in the United States of America (out of 193 ranked law schools), right after Harvard, according to “objective criteria” and a seemingly impartial ranking system called “Judging the Law Schools.” I dug a bit deeper and found a few flaws within their very own ranking system: For example, the ranking system EQUALLY WEIGHTS traditional indicators of a law schools performance, namely, its mediocre employment rate (#181st), student faculty ratio (#190), and first-time bar passage rate (#160th) with less traditional and measures less indicative of success that impact one’s decision to attend a law school which includes but is not limited to the availability of library chairs at the institutions four campus libraries (#2), total faculty (#2), and total law school enrolment (#1). Furthermore, their entire ranking system consisting of 40 indicators has 10 indicators -25% of the entire ranking- solely devoted to library size factors. Cooley clearly uses its self-published rankings as a shameless marketing tool where any large institution with four campuses (which is virtually unheard of for a law school) would be inclined to score better comparatively. I was motivated by their intellectually dishonest rankings and manipulative, shameless, and deceptive marketing campaign to recruit students which I believe is extremely misleading and may potentially be interpreted by some prospective students as a legitimate alternative ranking system to other more credible rankings, such as the US News. I also felt that Cooley’s press releases served as little more than propaganda and distorted the bitter reality that Cooley is more well-known as a degree mill, and a school of last resort which has one of the worst reputations and one of the most dubious distinctions in the legal community. The Cooley brand is well known for the irreparable stigma it carries, and with the filing of these SLAPP suits as a reckless abuse of the legal system it is unlikely that their reputation as a legal institution can fall much lower. It is with this sense of duty I created my blog site so that prospective students would be able to access the information that Cooley does not publish on their website so that prospective students can make more INFORMED DECISIONS prior to deciding what is likely to be their biggest financial commitment in their lives. The blog was to serve a strong “Buyer Beware”message to students considering Cooley as an option for law school. My underlying concerns were that ambitious students leverage their entire futures to attend law schools including their financial stability in the pursuit of a ‘higher education’. The value of these life-altering decisions is extremely questionable in the lower-tiered schools. The decision to attend law school can affect one’s entire life, including their ability to buy homes, get married, and start families. A J.D. is one of the most grossly overpriced products on the American market. I personally believe students should be able to make informed decisions and have access to information and biting critiques rearding the prudency of a law school investment given the state of the current legal job market. Especially when incurring hundreds of thousands of NON-DISCHARGEABLE DEBT. I felt that if I could even influence one person’s decision whether or not to attend law school or whether to attend Cooley then my time and effort in developing my site would be worthwhile. People have a right to access information- if Cooley can launch their marketing propaganda non-stop and parade around proclaiming themselves as the 2nd best law school in the country then why can I not provide a hard hitting critique and assessment of the value of a Cooley degree and their unethical, misleading, and deceptive business practices? Why did you decide to fight the suit, rather than submit to the initial demands that Cooley was making? To me there was never really a choice in the first place. If they were to e-mail me prior to filing the lawsuit or identify anything they considered to be defamatory I would have gladly removed the material if I agreed. If they threatened legal action, I would have complied despite my personal disagreement with their allegations. No one enjoys a lawsuit, and given that I do not have the time, or financial resources to defend my rights I would have reluctantly acquiesced and deleted the site. Here they never contacted me at all until the day after they filed and publicized the lawsuit. I immediately offered to delete the website if they would drop the lawsuit, allowing me to carry on with my life and 3L studies at my new law school. They seemed less interested in me deleting the website or removing anything that was potentially “defamatory” than they were in my identity. They declined my offer and demanded my identity immediately, stating that if I gave it to them right away they would “consider” a non-monetary settlement. I perceived the communication as somewhat hostile, strategic, and a bullying tactic, so I decided to “lawyer-up”. After I retained an attorney, my attorney also communicated that I would be willing to delete the website; instead their lawyers refused and remained insistent on knowing who I am without putting anything concrete on the table. They have claimed that your blog includes defamatory statements. What is your response to that charge? There is nothing defamatory in my blog post. In fact, if you view the Complaint itself you will see that they have pieced together different parts of my blog, taken things out of context, manipulated my statements, and filled in a lot of their own words in order to put forth a facially non-frivolous lawsuit. The claims are really weak. They allege thatI refer to them as a “multi-million dollar business”, well first I don’t quite understand how being called a business is defamatory. Second, by means of their second charge in their complaint they concede they are a business by alleging I have intentionally interfered with BUSINESS relations. Third, their own 2009 IRS Form 990 which is open to public inspection proves they are a multi-million dollar business with gross receipts totaling $271,139,283. Do you see how profitable it is to be a law school? It seems Cooley has literally attempted to piece together a claim by attempting to plant non-defamatory factual statements I made and intersperse it with my opinion and their self-created statements distorting and intentionally manipulating certain things in my blog post in order to file a claim against me. In my opinion, holding yourself out to the general public and prospective students as the second best law school in the country especially when your bar passage rates are in the bottom 25% of schools after taking into account that they fail out over 25% of the weaker students in their entering classes which inflates their bar passage rates to begin with, and that the Cooley employment rate is one of the worst in the country is providing false and misleading information in order to attract and retain consumers. Clearly, Cooley is trying to police the internet. Cooley seems angry over my critique of their school and calling them out for their questionable practices and seems intent on harassing me with lawsuits. If I proclaimed to the world that I was the second best at anything in America I would expect that I would be inviting a fair amount of criticism in my direction unless I had formally been honored with a silver medal in that category. Cooley is a public figure; they hold themselves out to the public as the biggest law school in America, and as the second best legal institution- is this any way to deal with some of your inevitable critics? I am guilty of nothing more than identifying the institutional hypocrisy evident in Cooley’s business practices which involve millions of federally backed student loan dollars using publicly available information which includes data from the ABA, the US News, the Cooley website, and other sources which are all referenced within the original blog post. This appears to be little more than a textbook SLAPP suit which is intended to intimidate free speech and amounts to a severe abuse of the legal system and legal process. This leads me to believe that Cooley does not in fact truly believe in the very first amendment it teaches. Any prospective student should be wary of such a hypocritical school. Cooley then proceeds to openly boast about integrity and ethics at the core of its institution of higher learning. In my opinion, Cooley is likely the most unethical law school business in existence, lacking any sense of institutional integrity whatsoever. How concerned are you about being unmasked at this point? What are your biggest concerns about having your named revealed? I am pretty sure I am doing the right thing here. These lawsuits have been universally derided in the legal community and have angered human rights organizations and first amendment lawyers across the country. Public Citizen has already intervened as Amicus delivering a strong message that under the balancing test put forth under the Dendrite Rule the balance sharply tips in favor of non-disclosure of my identity given how weak Cooley’s claims are, stating that Cooley has not proved anything is defamatory or that they can prevail on their claims. I’m sure that no one would like to be publicly identified with a lawsuit due to the stigma associated with it. Now this is a civil case, but in criminal cases I am sure everyone is aware of the bias when one hears that an individual has been charged of a crime. There is an immediate presumption towards a defendants culpability that comes to mind despite the ideal that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. I have had a lot of people reach out to me and offer me support. I’d like to think I am fighting the good fight. If my name does get revealed I just hope that the majority of people are able or willing to dig and read between the lines (as so few are) and see this for what it is- a frivolous lawsuit filed to harass a critic, which is the definition of a SLAPP suit. When they do a bit of research and realize that what I’m saying is the truth, I would hope that they too voice their outrage over Cooley and perhaps down the line there will be more scrutiny of Cooley by Consumer Protection agencies or the ABA. How has the suit impacted your life? As a 3L law student who works 20 hours a week, attends classes full-time, and is working toward another professional designation simultaneously while preparing to write the bar exam in the upcoming months this has all been a bit overwhelming. Many 3L students do not budget in the time commitments, effort, or emotional investment required in being harassed by lawsuits into their normal work load. Thankfully my attorney has been sympathetic to my financial situation; otherwise I would be facing additional crushing financial burdens that are some of the additional intended goals of such SLAPP suits. I can’t say I enjoy squaring off against a law school with a seemingly endless supply of financial resources, artillery of lawyers, and a full PR team. I’m sure that no one would enjoy fighting Goliath as a tiny David. As I mentioned I have several personal and professional commitments which remain my priorities and so the lawsuit remains a hassle. I preferred life without lawsuits, but if this lawsuit can in any way increase the spotlight on Cooley’s questionable and unethical business practices, help reform law school reporting in general, or inform potential Cooley students of the bigger picture surrounding the Cooley Law School proposition on a larger platform, I would feel that something good has come of all this. Do you regret starting the blog? Not at all. I truly believe that I was performing a public service. In what world does it make any financial or economic sense to invest $150,000+ and three years of your life into a Cooley degree which (generously) lists their entering private sector salary at $51,000 and an employment rate that ranks 181/193 other law schools in the country? Keep in mind that these figures do not take into account the actual response rate of graduating classes, whether the employment reported requires a J.D., and that generally unemployed or underemployed individuals will be less likely to report unemployment or mediocre wages/employment. Law school is now a billion dollar industry with loose reporting standards in dire need of reform in terms of greater transparency in reporting. Student loan debt has now surpassed revolving debt (mostly credit cards) in the United States of America. Given the financial dollar amounts at stake I would go as far as to suggest that there needs to be SEC-type regulation of law school reporting. Surely there would be an outrage if financial statements by publicly traded companies were fudged. What about law school individual investors who invest hundreds of thousands of federally backed loan funds into these law schools? I personally believe Cooley is one of the biggest offenders! There lies a deep humanitarian crisis in the corporatization of law schools. It is completely unethical for law schools (again, specifically Cooley as the biggest offender) to continue getting richer off of indentured students using federally backed student loan dollars who have done nothing wrong besides pursuing higher education in hopes of achieving their ambitions and goals and leading a rewarding, fulfilling, and financially secure life with little regard to the employment prospects or future financial well-being of your students. The average starting salary for entering attorneys has deteriorated markedly each year since the recession due to a poor job market and the continuing oversupply of attorneys. Some numbers estimate the average salary for a starting attorney position is now around $70,000- keep in mind that outliers from HYS may still command those lucrative $160,000/year salaries that television shows glamorize and can significantly distort the average. Despite the poor outlook for law school graduates the ABA continues to accredit new schools each year and institutions such as Cooley continue to increase enrolment, expand their operations, and increase tuition each year despite a contracting job market. Further, much of the legal job market has been restructured to a temporary and part-time legal job market. I recall NALP statistics pegging the number of JD graduates in 2009 around 44,000 for a total of 27,500 jobs requiring a JD, further, the 27,500 jobs are not necessarily attorney positions (simply JD required) and do not take into account temporary or part-time legal employment. Furthermore, clarity and transparency into Cooley’s PR propaganda is of public concern. Providing clarity and transparency into what Cooley projects in attracting the largest student body in America is very critical for law school consumers and on a larger scale society in general given the oversaturation of the legal job market and impending “bubble burst” with respect to higher education, which is strongly driven by law schools. Law schools are deceiving students, but are also abusing taxpayers through taking advantage of federally backed funds that many law school graduates may not be able to afford to repay. In the end, society will be hurt the most. I felt certain things needed to be said in the interests of society’s welfare and felt morally and ethically obligated to take a stand. It is with this sense of moral duty and altruistic ideals I created my blog site. However, by being inspired and taking the initiative to voice my concerns I have become the target of Cooley’s abuse. There are a lot of people who have anonymous blogs that are critical of law schools. Do you have any advice or words of wisdom for them? My advice would be to responsibly continue in what you believe in and advocate for change. There needs to be freedom of information. The whole idea behind lawsuits of this nature is to intimidate, frighten, and silence free speech. It is a SLAPP-Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. It is by its very nature designed to silence criticism and free speech and discouraging public participation by instilling fear of being sued and the burdens associated with it. The whole goal is to crush the opposition no matter what the underlying merits of the suit. They will harass you, intimidate you, and burden you in any way, shape, or form. It may be emotionally, mentally, and financially taxing. I am presently a victim of such a suit, and let me tell you, it is not an experience I would recommend to others. However, I do believe that very few law schools, if any, would engage in such an abuse of the legal system. Many reputable organizations would find it better to simply ignore and dismiss any criticisms from a blogger. Indeed litigating these matters is a very questionable tactic. It also has the unintended effect of inviting more publicity onto what was considered “defamatory” in the first place, which is known as the Striesand Effect, which I’m hoping in light of new developments will be renamed to the Cooley Effect in honor of Cooley’s antics. Law schools are currently getting sued all over the country- there is merit to what the anonymous bloggers are saying. Schools are beginning to be reprimanded (lightly) after determining that they have fudged numbers in the past, the US News has announced tighter reporting requirements from law schools beginning next year due to the continuing pressure and criticisms. But Cooley is the ONLY law school that has gone out and pre-emptively sued its critics….it is also the only law school with five campuses spanning two states…it is also the only law school that issues inherently flawed press releases claiming the legal profession has strong employment rates and remains a good investment….all this while having one of the worst employment and bar passage rates amongst law schools and by the same breath declaring itself the second best law school in the country (next to Harvard)…catch my drift? My ultimate advice is to do your research, exercise your right to free speech, continue being critical on matters of public concern, and remember that consumers have a right to access information. In other words: rock on. CommentsJDS 10/20/2011 1:48pm
Of course, I do not expect that you will publish this commment or you will do so with a retort written in a form to deride me with some claim of my idiosy or incompetence, which will not bear it self out in any form of reality. But, I write to you nonetheless. Rockstar05 10/20/2011 7:17pm
First of all, if all of your accomplishments are actually true then I would congratulate you on your accomplishments. However, like most Cooley supporters your stories remain anecdotal and unverified. Furthermore, your criticisms of my blog are broad and do not identify ANYTHING that is either false or inaccurate and is therefore completely unfounded, undeserving of any credit, and without merit. By its sheer numbers Cooley is likely to drop a few decent AND employed lawyers into the system. I would hope with the largest student body in America (4000+ and five campuses??!!!) they would have some success stories. I will, however, identify a few inherent flaws in your arguments and reasoning skills which I feel, if you are the seasoned professional you claim to be, should know better. Rockstar05 10/20/2011 7:19pm
skills whatsoever? Andy 10/24/2011 4:28pm
JDS produced a well-written and admittedly poignant retort. But, unfortunately, the piece is all sizzle and no steak. former cooley student 11/16/2011 1:11pm
hey, I am grateful for this blog. However, I am terrified of posting anything becuase I am a 1L and like you, I cannot handle the hassle of a defamation suit - especially a frivilous one. please email me I think I have information you would be interested in. Like you I went there, but I got the axe after 4 terms. I gave up ont he petition process to get back in or get my grades forgiven before 2 years ended. I retook my LSAT got a 162 and am in a great place now. James 11/26/2011 6:27pm
JDS's comment just reinforces my growing belief in the deterioration of PR education in this country. It appears that PR interns these days aren't even able to spell-check their own work. Your comment will be posted after it is approved. Leave a Reply |
