CHARLESTON

PRO BONO POPULI

for the good of the people

SCHOOL OF LAW

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

Select Comparisons: Charleston School of Law versus Inlaw Schools

September 27, 2013

Select Comparisons Between Charleston School of Law and Infilaw Schools

Prepared by: Charleston School of Law Alumni Association Last Updated: September 27, 2013

Methodology:
All of the information presented in this report was derived from the self-reported data submitted to the ABA by each school, respectively. This was the best way to compare and contrast the schools respective statistics. Unless otherwise specified, the years referenced in the data refer to the year of publication of the data, not the year of collection of the data. Thus, data tagged 2014 may actually have been collected by each school in 2011. This detracts from the usefulness to student consumers of reviewing a single years ABA report; but by comparing the data over a period of years, useful trends, patterns, and conclusions emerge. In some cases, for the benefit of visual clarity, data from the Charleston School of Law has been compared to an average of the data collected from the Infilaw Schools. All data compiled for each school is appended to the end of this report.

Sources:
Current ABA school reports are available at http://officialguide.lsac.org. Prior ABA school reports are archived online at http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/publications/official-guide-archives. NALP reports are available only for the current year at http://www.nalplawschoolsonline.org. While the NALP data did not form the basis of any of the charts contained herein, because they present a nearly realtime snapshot of enrollment data for each school, they are a helpful resource for anyone wishing to learn more. ABA employment data is available at http://employmentsummary.abaquestionnaire.org i

1L Enrollment:
808

800
722 638 620 643 671 580

700 600 500 400

196

205

220

241

237

300
224 174

200 100

2008 Florida Phoenix Charlo9e Charleston 638 0 0 196

2009 620 91 0 205

2010 643 200 138 220

2011 722 272 276 241

2012 808 392 468 237

2013 671 450 529 224

2014 580 447 626 174

Each of the Infilaw schools is significantly bigger than the Charleston School of Law in terms of enrollment. While both Phoenix School of Law and Charlotte School of Law opened their doors after CSOL did, both schools have 1L enrollments that are roughly double that of the Charleston School of Law. This size differential raises important questions:
What are appropriate enrollment numbers for the Charleston School of Law? What factors should trigger increases in enrollment? If the Charleston School of Law were to significantly increase its enrollment, how would it address the space issues within the relatively small footprint of the Charleston peninsula? How would pressure to increase enrollments at Charleston School of Law affect the schools admissions criteria and selectivity?

1L Academic Attrition:
14% 12% 10% 8% 6% 4% 2% 0%

2008 Inlaw Average Charleston 12% 0.0%

2009 7% 1.0%

2010 8% 1.8%

2011 6% 1.3%

2012 8% 1.7%

2013 8% 1.3%

2014 10% 1.8%

Inlaw Average

Charleston

Students leave law school for a variety of reasonsthey transfer to other schools, determine they do not wish to practice law, have medical or family emergencies, or decide law school is simply no longer their desired path. But leaving law school due to academic attrition that is, leaving school for failing to meet academic standardscan have some of the most devastating personal and economic consequences: student loans must begin to be repaid as soon as students are no longer in school, and re-admission is often difficult, if not impossible, leaving students with little to show for their efforts other than debt. In recent years, due to decreased enrollments, law schools around the country have been reporting downward pressure on admissions standards like the LSAT and undergraduate GPA. So it is not surprising that academic attrition might begin to increase. But the contrast between the academic attrition at Infilaw schools versus the Charleston School of Law over the last few years shows, CSOLs rate of attrition remaining low, while Infilaws has continued to creep up to alarming levels. At 10% attrition, with average 1L enrollments around 500 students, that means an average of 50 students per school per year fails out of law school in the first year.

1L Median LSAT:
154

152

150

148

146

2008 Charleston Inlaw Average 154 151

2009 154 152

2010 153 150

2011 153 151

2012 154 149

2013 152 148

2014 151 146

144

As noted in the previous section, schools around the country have faced considerable downward pressure on admissions standards as applications to law schools have dropped off over the last few years. Clearly both the Charleston School of Law and Infilaw schools have experienced this drop off, but the Infilaw drop-off appears to have been steeper. These numbers raise important questions, some of which will not be able to be answered for several more years, given the lag between data reporting regarding admission to law school and the bar examination:
How will a schools decrease in admissions standards correlate to the bar passage rates of its graduates? Will an increase in 1L enrollment, if any, at the Charleston School of Law result in further downward pressure on admissions standards?

Diversityamong 1Ls versus graduates:

40.0% 35.0% 30.0% 25.0% 20.0% 15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0% 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 Inlaw: minoriFes as percentage of 1Ls Inlaw: minoriFes as percentage of graduates Charleston: minoriFes as percentage of 1Ls Charleston: minoriFes as percentage of graduates

Among Infilaws most powerful arguments for its admissions algorithm and strategy is that it opens its doors to historically underserved communities. And when the Charleston School of Law is compared to Infilaw on percentages of minority students1whether for 1Ls or graduates, Infilaw clearly does come out ahead. But while Infilaws minority enrollment is admirable, the comparison made here between minority enrollment in the 1L year, versus minority percentages among graduatesraises a troubling question:
What accounts for the significant discrepancy between the rates of 1L minority enrollment at Infilaw schools, versus the rates of minority graduation?

For the purposes of this comparison, minority is interpreted in the way the ABA interprets it, to included all people of Hispanic, Native American, Asian, African American, Pacific Islander, or mixed race heritage.
1

How many students really graduate?

40%
36%

35%
31% 28% 26% 24% 22% 23% 22% 28%

30% 25% 20%

17%

17% 15%

16%

15% 10% 5%

0%

0% 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Charleston JDs awarded as percentage of total enrollment Inlaw JDs awarded as percentage of total enrollment

2008

Among the alumnis chief concerns is that for students as consumers. Students want to know that if they start law school, they will finish law school. Because full-time students ordinarily finish law school in three years, absent significant enrollment fluxuations or part-time student populations, we might expect to see graduates numbering roughly one-third of a schools total enrollment each year. And yet, at the Infilaw schoolswhich have significantly smaller percentages of their students participating part-time than Charlestonthose graduate numbers have hovered between 15 and 23% for the last few years. Charleston, on the other hand has had numbers much more in line with what would be expected for on-time graduation rates. This raises worrisome questions:
Why do so few of Infilaws students graduate each year? How long does it actually take to graduate from an Infilaw school?

Full-time, permanent employment as lawyers:

Florida Coastal 35.88%

2012 Rate

Phoenix 43.65% Charlo9e 37.61% Charleston 53.71%

Florida Coastal 36.14%

2011 Rate

Phoenix 36.64% Charlo9e 43.30% Charleston 50.78%

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

By and large, law students go to law schools because they want to be lawyers. So when evaluating the claims of law schools make about their employment statistics, students want to know how many graduates at each school are employed full-time as lawyers within the first year after law school. While the legal job market has been difficult throughout the United States during and since the recession, the job prospects for students at the Charleston School of law were clearly significantly better in 2011 and 2012 than those for students at Infilaw Schools.

SELECTED ENROLLMENT, GRADUATION & EMPLOYMENT DATA

1L Academic Attrition
School Florida Phoenix Charlotte Infilaw Average Charleston 2014 12% 4% 13.5% 10% 1.8% 2013 11% 5% 9.6% 8% 1.3% 2012 9% 7% 7.6% 8% 1.7% 2011 8% 7% 4.3% 6% 1.3% 2010 16% 4% 4.8% 8% 1.8% 2009 11% 3% n/a 7% 1.0% 2008 12% n/a n/a 12% 0.0%

1L Median LSAT
School Florida Phoenix Charlotte Infilaw Average Charleston 2014 146 145 146 146 151 2013 147 148 148 148 152 2012 149 150 149 149 154 2011 150 151 151 151 153 2010 150 151 150 150 153 2009 151 153 n/a 152 154 2008 151 n/a n/a 151 154

Diversity: minorities as percentage of graduates

School Florida Phoenix Charlotte Infilaw: minorities as percentage of graduates Charleston: minorities as percentage of graduates 2014 27.1% 19.9% 18.4% 21.8% 8.7% 2013 25.4% 24.4% 11.2% 20.3% 10.7% 2012 23.3% 20.3% 12.3% 18.7% 4.9% 2011 20.3% 20.3% 14.1% 18.2% 3.8% 2010 12.2% 11.8% n/a 12.0% 4.7% 2009 12.1% n/a n/a 12.1% 5.9% 2008 12.2% n/a n/a 12.2% n/a

Diversity: minorities as percentage of 1Ls

School Florida Phoenix Charlotte Infilaw: minorities as percentage of 1Ls Charleston: minorities as percentage of 1Ls 2014 37% 43.1% 39.9% 40.0% 10.9% 2013 33.7% 33.5% 33.2% 33.5% 13.0% 2012 32.3% 21.9% 23.8% 26.0% 11.4% 2011 31.1% 19.8% 19.6% 23.5% 7.5% 2010 26.2% 22.4% 16.7% 21.7% 10.1% 2009 24.1% 22.0% n/a 23.1% 8.7% 2008 23.7% n/a n/a 23.7% 6.6%

JDs Awarded as percentage of total enrollment

School Florida Phoenix Charlotte Infilaw JDs awarded as percentage of total enrollment Charleston JDs awarded as percentage of total enrollment 2014 32% 17% 17% 2013 26% 13.5% 8.5% 2012 25% 10% 10% 2011 26% 11% 13% 2010 23% 10% n/a 2009 23% n/a n/a 2008 22% n/a n/a

22%

16%

15%

17%

17%

23%

22%

36%

28%

26%

24%

28%

31%

n/a

Percentage of students enrolled "full-time"

School Florida Phoenix Charlotte Infilaw percentage of students enrolled full-time Charleston percentage of students enrolled full-time 2014 86.0% 68.2% 83.9% 2013 97.1% 71.9% 82.8% 2012 96.6% 71.0% 82.4% 2011 95.9% 65.5% 79.0% 2010 89.0% 58.3% 78.3% 2009 88.2% 53.1% n/a 2008 83.4% n/a n/a

79.4%

83.9%

83.3%

80.1%

75.2%

70.7%

83.4%

70.0%

73.1%

74.1%

69.7%

70.0%

66.7%

56.2%

Entering class size

School Florida Phoenix Charlotte Charleston 2014 580 447 626 174 2013 671 450 529 224 2012 808 392 468 237 2011 722 272 276 241 2010 643 200 138 220 2009 620 91 0 205 2008 638 0 0 196

Tuition
School Florida Coastal Phoenix Charlotte Charleston 2014 39370 39,533 38,606 37,874 2013 36968 37,764 36,916 36,774 2012 34712 36,036 34,990 35,606 2011 32662 34,396 33,166 34,618 2010 2009 2008 30816 28870 27088 31,562 28,640 29,968 32,970 30,598 28,680

Full-time employment as lawyers

School Charleston Charlotte Phoenix Florida Coastal 2011 50.78% 43.30% 36.64% 36.14% 2012 53.71% 37.61% 43.65% 35.88%