Does this ABA law school actually accept transfers from state approved schools?

The Appalachia School of Law is a very small ABA law school in the mountains of Virginia. I was perusing their web site today and found this announcement on their web site:

"The Appalachian School of Law (ASL) is now accepting applications for transfer.

The Law School may accept transfer students from ABA-approved or state-approved law schools in accordance to ABA Standard 506 upon demonstration that the student would have qualified for entrance into the School as a first-year student and the student is a student in good standing at the prior law school. "

http://www.asl.edu/article.php?story_id=199&cmd=verbose

Does this mean that someone who has completed law credits at a California state approved law school can potentially transfer to ASL?

 

Possibly. The best way to find out would be ask ASL directly.

This is a DL forum, so the term "state-approved law school," as used here, generally refers to the California-approved DL law schools. However, California and certain other states also have non-ABA, state-approved B&M law schools.

My guess would be that ASL's reference to "state-approved" law school more likely means "state-approved B&M law schools from Georgia, Alabama, or Tennessee". I suspect that they may not be thinking of "California-approved DL law schools".

But it wouldn't hurt to ask them about it. If you do, let us know what they say.

 

It won't work if the law school is a state approved distance learning school. Standard 506 is subject to the residency requirement set out in standard 304 (b), and you can guess what that says about distance learning.

In case you can't guess:

(b) A law school shall require, as a condition for graduation, successful completion of a
course of study in residence of not fewer than 58,000 minutes of instruction time,
except as otherwise provided. At least 45,000 of these minutes shall be by attendance in
regularly scheduled class sessions at the law school.

A couple subsequent sections go on to deal with distance education. There are allowances made for distance courses, but it is really limited, nothing nearly approaching a full degree (it seems to be max 12 credits out of the whole program).

Here's the link:

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standards/2006-2007StandardsBookMaster.PDF

 

Massachusetts has two non-ABA law schools which are RA and totally residential;

http://www.mslaw.edu

http://www.snesl.edu

 

At least 45,000 of these minutes shall be by attendance in
regularly scheduled class sessions at the law school.

LOL, that makes it crystal clear. DL Need not apply.

 

The use of "minutes" reminds me of the law firm a previous employer used -they charged by the minute.