A class action lawsuit filed this past Wednesday against Thomas M. Cooley Law School and New York Law School by several of its former students asserts claims that both schools are guilty of overstating and amplifying their post-graduate employment and salary statistics. These students are alleging that their respective schools are misclassifying graduated, employed students. It would appear that a graduate from either school, unable to obtain legal hire and hit with often over a hundred thousand dollars in school debt, employed as a part-time cocktail waitress would be represented by their school as “fully employed.”
Cooley has commenced two separate lawsuits, one against Plaintiffs’ counsel, Garden City-based Kurzon Strauss, LLP, and the other against a number of anonymous bloggers. Both lawsuits hinge on the premise that the school is being defamed on public web forums from postings about the school’s employment reporting methods.
Cooley seems to be pointing a little finger at the American Bar Association, noting that its job placement rating methods and employment statistics are in harmony with the other 200 or so ABA accredited law schools in the US. The Wall Street Journal reported that Cooley’s General Counsel Jim Thelen made statements alluding to the fact that Kurzon Strauss is looking for his justice in the wrong places and should take up their issue with the ABA or the Department of Education because law schools are doing nothing wrong.
These angry grads are hoping for their class action to land them a little under half a million dollars, seeking 200 million from NYLS and 250 million from Cooley. If they can’t find work, they might as well get that tuition money back, some extra in damages and a restructuring of post-graduate employment reporting to both alert and save the fresh new group of doe-eyed incoming students.