A Tennessee judge has been urged by the American Bar Association not to order the ABA to rescind its accreditation denial of Lincoln Memorial University’s law school. The law school filed an antitrust lawsuit last month.
The ABA, in a response brief, said that the request for a temporary restraining order by the Duncan School of Law is “undeserved and unprecedented and should be denied.”
The denial decision was made on December 20 by the ABA, which says that Duncan has not exhausted its right to appeal. The decision was made by the ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The ABA also states that the school cannot show that it will be irreparably harmed by the denial because the school can always reapply for accreditation from the ABA.
The response from the ABA also stated that if it was ordered to remove the denial notice from its website than truthful speech would be silenced. This is information that current and prospective law students, along with the public, have an interest in knowing.
“There is a strong public interest in having those who look to the council’s evaluation of legal education — including current and prospective law students, faculty, state supreme courts and bar admission authorities, the U.S. Department of Education and the public — receive prompt and accurate information,” the ABA’s response said. “Duncan’s requested restraint on truthful speech would harm this public interest.”
The Duncan School of Law is based in Knoxville, Tennessee. The school sued the ABA on December 22, 2011, claiming that the ABA colluded with other law schools to restrain competition amongst other schools by denying accreditation for the school.
Instead of appealing the decision by the ABA, the law school has decided to file a lawsuit against the ABA. The school claims that an appeal would be futile because of the “complete and utter disregard” by the Council of the ABA of all the facts presented by the law school.
There are close to 200 students enrolled at Duncan, which opened during the fall semester back in 2009 for part-time students and then opened to full-time students last year. The reason issued for the ABA denial to Duncan was that average LSAT scores for incoming students was too low for students at the school to complete the program and then gain admission to the ABA.
In the lawsuit, Duncan claims that there were no less than eight schools that have lower average LSAT scores that earned accreditation by the ABA. In the ABA response, the bar claims that Duncan has not been able to provide any facts to support its claims of antitrust.
Michael L. Cioffi, of Blank Rome LLP, is the representative for Duncan along with Robert H. Watson Jr. of Watson Roach Batson Rowell Lauderback PLC.
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