Hard work wins LMU law school ABA approval

In 1897, the founders of Lincoln Memorial University developed a mission to provide higher educational opportunities to the mountain areas of Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia. As a tribute to Abraham Lincoln the lawyer, the university opened a law school in Knoxville in 2009 with the primary goal of supplying lawyers to the underserved areas in Southern Appalachia.

For accreditation by the American Bar Association, the body authorized by the federal government to assure quality legal education, there is a two-step process: first, provisional approval and second, full accreditation. After a difficult start, LMU’s school of law achieved provisional accreditation in 2014, a status that allows our graduates to take the bar examination in any state in the country. Full accreditation is scheduled for 2019.

Last January, the ABA developed additional guidelines to ensure that students who receive federal loans are able to pay back their debts. That is as it should be. Thus, a new provision limits attrition (voluntary withdrawals and academic dismissals) to no more than 20 percent of each entering class absent good cause.

There is a bit of tension between this new requirement and our mission as an “opportunity school.” We often admit some with modest academic credentials who, in other ways, have displayed a strong work ethic, or “grit,” as is the more fashionable term. Service in the military is a good example. Not every applicant who wants to be a lawyer made straight A’s as an undergrad, and while many of our students did so, our experience is that when it comes to academic success, a strong work ethic and a passion to serve the rule of law trump undergraduate grade-point averages and scores on the Law School Admission Test.

In the two years prior to the new ABA requirement, our school had attrition rates of 22 percent and 24 percent. Last April, three months after the adoption of the new requirement but before our school year ended, an ABA committee published a finding, largely based on past attrition, that our school had failed to meet an academic standard. Much to our embarrassment, that news made the front page in Knoxville. Had the committee met later, they would have learned that our attrition for the 2017-18 school year was only 8 percent, well within the new guidelines. Fortunately, this summer the ABA agreed to take another look. They sent a site team in September, and, last week, gave our school a clean bill of health.

As our namesake Lincoln once advised an aspiring lawyer, “Work, work, work, is the main thing” to a successful career in the law – and that is the quality we value most in the admission process. Our faculty and our staff are determined to not only serve our basic mission but to meet or exceed all ABA standards.

Hats off to the council for its willingness to grant us its seal of approval.

Source: Knoxville News Sentinel, by Gary Wade

The East Tennessee Economic Development Agency markets and recruits business for the 15 counties in the greater Knoxville-Oak Ridge region of East Tennessee. Visit www.eteda.org

Source: Knoxville News Sentinel

The East Tennessee Economic Development Agency markets and recruits business for the 15 counties in the greater Knoxville-Oak Ridge region of East Tennessee. Visit www.eteda.org

Published December 13, 2018