ABA Gets Out of the Way of Florida Coastal's Success

As you may recall, Florida Coastal brought suit in federal court against the ABA for vague accreditation standards that unfairly stopped it from fully savoring its meaty prospect pool.  Well - in yet another development showing that the dust of that great irrational rebuke of law school is settling - Florida Coastal dropped the suit:

The new filing offered no insight into why the parties are dismissing the case, but Florida Coastal Dean Scott DeVito said Wednesday that the school is confident in the ABA’s accreditation process moving forward.

“The primary reason we are dropping the suit is that our faith in the process has been restored based on the council’s and section’s interactions with us on our pending issues the last few months, and after the factfinders came last week,” he said.

Translation: Florida Coastal is back, baby!  Want proof?  Their argument is literally that it's competitive with the bottom quintile of law schools in America.

“We talked about our entering credentials being on par with or better than 44 other law schools, our Florida first-time bar pass being above 4 out of 5 comparable law schools in Florida and just 5.5 points below first-tier University of Florida in 2018, the strength and skill of our faculty and academic support, our continuing improvements in career placement, and what great students we have,” DeVito wrote to students.

This is the glory of the ABA and pseudo-regulatory capture.  If one school sucks (relatively: these kids are all budding millionaires, right?), they get isolated, called out,  closed down.  But if it's 44 uncle-fucking schools that all  suck, it's the standards that are the problem.  Strength in numbers

As of this writing, Florida Coastal's non-discounted cost on Law School Transparency is $255,736.  It boasts a 37.4% employment score.  Its reported LSAT spread is 140-147.  The school is so confident that things are going to go well with the ABA's Council on Legal Education later this spring it dismissed its lawsuit with prejudice. Ask yourself if the future hearing has any real teeth behind it.

It's truly a wonder why Valpo, Whittier, et al, opted to close.  Running one of these businesses is like writing subprime mortgages but you're permanently stuck in 2004 and Fannie Mae is wearing a spiked dog collar with your initials on it.  I'm jealous of the joy these folks must feel sending out admission letters.  Legitimately jealous.

The legal academy may hate Donald J. Trump and the broad strain of American libertarianism, but it's with a big ironic wink; its crappiest members clearly enjoy the profits of a totally neutered regulatory scheme paired with a rigged "free market."  They're no different, deep down, than the typical Fox News economist, and it's truly a glorious, glorious thing to be on the right side of such ideology.

Florida Coastal Contemplates Savvy Corporate Reorganization

As we know, one of the bugaboos of law school detractors is "for-profit" status, an offshoot, one supposes, of this Millenial trope that after nothing but historical success with unfettered capitalism, maybe America should try socialism.  Nation is a grand experiment, I suppose.

In reality:  Liz Warren faked her ethnicity and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not go to law school. Capitalism wins, Q.E.D.

The thing about law schools is that the faculties/administrators are as smart as the grease-slick companies their faculty members would be advising at white shoe firms but-for their steadfast commitments to public service.  See, e.g., Florida Coastal's corporate reorganization scheme:

Florida Coastal School of Law, a Jacksonville-based for-profit institution, says it will seek to reclassify as a nonprofit entity, joining a number of other for-profit institutions that have recently announced plans to change tax status as a solution to legal, regulatory or marketing hurdles...

Law school officials say the change would allow professors to apply for federal research grants and would facilitate the expansion of an endowment. Converting to nonprofit status would also have the added benefit of reducing federal regulatory requirements and removing a for-profit label that has become toxic for many students.

Live from Jacksonville, it's a checkmate.  Just as prestigious institutions all across the fourth tier have learned, if you simply move from an independent for-profit to a "better" status, you expand your market potential even while retaining the exact same profitably shit-stained standards.

Isn't anything actually going to change at Florida Coastal?  Shit, no.  It's got a nice thing going and it's turning out future millionaires.  Who in their right mind would change that formula because what some snooty hunchbacks in other places spit at their computer monitors? But you improve the bait, sometimes you land bigger fish.

Enjoy that new research money and reduced regulatory requirements, Florida Coastal, but never change for real.  We love you just the way you are.