States that will or will not accept the California distance learning JD

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by nosborne48, Nov 29, 2005.

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  1. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Colorado won't accept D/L J.D. degrees?

    MODERATOR NOTE: Several current threads on this subject have now been merged into this one thread; and this thread has been given the new name that it now bears.


    I didn't expect this. I am thinking of sitting for the Colorado Bar exam. My wife is a Coloradan and her folks still live in Denver. We've talked about going back.

    Anyway, I looked up Colorado's admissions rules. Colorado offers reciprocity for lawyers with ABA J.D.degrees. Since New Mexico offers reciprocity to no one, that means we'd both have to take the Colorado Bar Exam.

    So I looked at the educational requirements for Class "B" applicants and found something disturbing.

    A Class "B" applicant must either possess a J.D. degree from an ABA accredited school OR a J.D. degree from a "state accredited" law school plus five years of active law practice.

    I thought about this..."state accredited" probably would exclude all unaccredited California J.D. programs. I THINK it would also exclude DETC accredited schools. DETC accreditation in California is definitely NOT the same thing as CalBar accreditation.
     
  2. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    Re: Colorado won't accept D/L J.D. degrees?

    For some time now I've been building a table that shows which states might allow California DL JD holders to practice law there, and under what circumstances. I've not worked on it for a while, but when I look back on it and its COLORADO entry, it contains:
    • A California D/L J.D. holder may not be admitted on motion, without exam; but a graduate of a state-accredited (no mention of state "registered") law school in another state may take the Colorado bar exam if s/he has been admitted to practice in the same state as the state-accredited law school s/he attended; and if s/he has practiced in said state for five (5) of the seven (7) years preceding the application.
    So I obviously noticed the use of the word "accredited" rather than "registered" last year, when last I worked on the table. It's unfortunate that it was that long ago, because I think I'm remembering something -- but the memory's unclear, and I can't find notes on it -- that I read somewhere which suggested the possibility of Colorado seeing the word "accredited" and "registered" as basically the same for its purposes... in either case, meaning "approved." For the life of me I can't remember what I read that gave me that impression, but I definitely have a memory of it. I could be wrong, of course... but I have a recollection of something to that effect. I'll see if I can dig it up.
     
  3. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I'll take a look at the annotated Colorado Rules of Court this evening; maybe there's a decision out there already.

    This is, of course, merely academic; both my wife's J.D. (Georgetown) and mine (UNM) are ABA accredited; plu which, it's not likely that we will really make the move. New Mexico's market for lawyers is much less competitive than Colorado's market, largely because 1) Colorado is a reciprocity state and USED to offer admission on motion and 2) every YUPPIE lawyer in the COUNTRY wants to live there!

    But when D/L schools make claims about the acceptability of their degrees, you really have to CHECK.
     
  4. Michael Lloyd

    Michael Lloyd New Member

    Colorado is a popular state for yuppie lawyers? Is there a very robust legal community outside of Denver, or is Denver pretty much it?

    I have only had occasion to go to Denver and Colorado Springs on business, so I don't know very much about the state.
     
  5. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    She "married down", then? :eek: :D

    I work with a guy that met his wife while both were in Boston College Law School, he dropped out to start the police academy, and subsequently finished his J.D. at Suffolk University's evening program.

    He tells me that his wife never lets him forget who has the more prestigious law degree. :cool:
     
  6. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Prestige

    She did indeed "marry down" but after thirteen years, she's civilized me to some extent, at least. ;)

    Georgetown is considered by some authorities (notably Georgetown professors) as being the best single law school in the country.

    Even UNM professors don't say such things about UNM.

    BTW: I looked over lunch and found no Colorado cases addressing the question. I am inclined to think that Colorado would follow the foreign law school's state's definition of "accredited" rather than impose a definition of its own. Under this analysis, "accredited" means "CalBar accredited".
     
  7. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Yuppie Heaven

    For a population of about 3.5 million, Colorado enjoys some 27,000 attorneys, more, last time I checked, than any other single western state (Texas is a SOUTHERN state, dammit) outside of California.

    Washington State is severely underlawyered in comparison and Arizona is in desperate straits!
     
  8. Michael Lloyd

    Michael Lloyd New Member

    Re: Yuppie Heaven

    Ay caramba! And I thought we had a lot of people in our Bar Association! They should send a colony up to Montana or something.
     
  9. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I think that's right

    I looked all over for the source of my 27,000 figure; no luck. Anyway, I think it's pretty accurate. There are 14,000 members of the Colorado Bar Association which is a NON INTEGRATED bar with voluntary membership; I think that's about the same number as there are Washington attorneys in toto for a population of, what, a little over 6 million? It certainly is about the same as the Arizona Bar for a state of over 5 million, anyway.

    Work in Colorado is hard to find and doesn't pay very well, I'm afraid. Buuuut since I have no student loans and my wife loves to ski...

    I am too OLD to be a Yuppie. :D
     
  10. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Okay, honesty time. I just checked:

    Arizona claims some 18,000 active members, both in state and out of state.

    Washington State claims some 27,000 total active members.

    ANYWAY, if Colorado has the 27K I seem to remember from SOMEWHERE for a population much smaller than either of these states, you can see how overlawyered the Centennial State really IS.
     
  11. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    Re: Colorado won't accept D/L J.D. degrees?

    Another example of limitations of degree that is not professionally accredited. In this case ABA.

    But non ABA accredited degrees that are "state accredited" and having 5 years in Professional Practice to insure familiarity with the Professional Standard Work Educational experience may be sufficient for class B type application.

    On NY has State Accreditation, so I understand this as State University that is RA.

    Learner
     
  12. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Lerner,

    Maybe, but I don't THINK so.

    You are right that among state governments, only NY is a Dept. of Education recognized accrediting agency. But looking at the Colorado Rules, I don't think that they are concerned with DOE recognition; I think that they are concerned with whether the Bar examiners in a sister state are satisfied with the quality of a non ABA school in their own state.

    Arguably, since California will permit graduates of D/L and unaccredited schools to take the California Bar, that is enough recognition.

    On the other hand, CalBar itself uses the terms "accredited" and "unaccredited" in refering to California's no ABA schools. My GUESS is that Colorado would follow California's definitions. But without a test case, we don't really know.

    It's worth noting that CalBar does not distinguish between D/L schools that are DETC accredited and those that are not.
     
  13. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Oh, and it's also true...

    that CalBar does not distinguish between CalBar accredited schools that are R/A, such as LaVern, New College and San Joaquin, and CalBar accredited schools that are NOT R/A, such as San Francisco, Monterey, and Santa Barbara (I think).

    So I suspect Colorado also wouldn't distinguish between R/A and non R/A CalBar schools.

    No California unaccredited or correspondence law school is R/A because WASC won't accredit any California institution containing a law school unless and until the law school is CalBar accredited.
     
  14. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    Re: Re: Colorado won't accept D/L J.D. degrees?

    Lerner's particular concern seems to be schools that are RA, but not PA. But in practice, such schools are rare. RA schools normally have appropriate PA, and schools with PA are normally RA as well.

    There are a handful of RA, but non-ABA, law schools in California: Humphreys, John F. Kennedy University, New College, San Joaquin, and University of LaVerne. For the July 2004 bar exam, these schools contributed only 86 of the 5,521 first-time takers. You could also add 26 first-time takers from the University of West Los Angeles, although this school recently had its RA revoked.

    But even these RA, non-ABA schools do have PA: they are approved by the California Bar Association. In California, such approval puts their graduates on the same footing as graduates of schools approved by the American Bar Association.

    Outside of California, it's different: "California state PA" is not as recognized or useful as "ABA national PA". But it's not completely worthless either. Furthermore, the limitations of non-ABA degrees are well known in the legal community; students at CalBar law schools know what they are getting into.

    So the bottom line is that all RA law schools in California have PA. The vast majority have American Bar Association "national PA"; a few have California Bar Association "state PA". But there are no RA law schools in California without PA of some sort.

    There are unaccredited law schools in California that have neither "national" or "state" PA. But they don't have RA either.
     
  15. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Caldog,

    A good summary.

    I am surprised that UWLA lost its WASC accreditation. What happened? I had the impression that it was a genuine school doing legitimate work in respectable facilities. Not true?

    I will differ with you in one respect based on a single anecdote; I shared office space years ago with a lawyer here in New Mexico. He told me (though how true it was I couldn't say) that until he moved from California and applied to our Bar Examiners, he had no idea that his LaVerne J.D. wasn't accredited. Fortunately for him, he'd been in private practice in Redlands or somewhere for the previous five years so we let him take our Bar and obtain a New Mexico license. Colorado would have accepted his application as well.
     
  16. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    two other points:

    I count 19 California ABA schools and 19 CalBar accredited schools. "School" means "campus"; at least two of the 19 CalBar schools comprise two campuses (campii?) each. LaVerne will likely receive provisional ABA approval before May 2006 which will make the count 20 and 18. But if Whittier or Western State loses its approval (the former is on probation and the latter actually lost ABA approval for a brief period) the count will shift back...

    Unfortunately for my old friend, LaVerne's new ABA approval won't affect his degree. But I don't think he cares.
     
  17. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Colorado won't accept D/L J.D. degrees?

    Hmmm. I'm not sure that I'd categorize CalBar "accreditation" as "PA" -- even in California. To be "PA," it seems to me, the specialized/professional (PA) accreditor needs to be approved by the US Department of Education (USDE) and/or its Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).

    In fact, I've always been troubled by the application of the word "accredit" (and all derivatives thereof) to any situation in an educational/academic setting wherein the agency doing the "accrediting" isn't USDE- and/or CHEA-approved.

    Apparently, CHEA's president agrees... as I discovered in a transcript of some 2003 testimony of hers, across which I recently stumbled, wherein she indicated her opinion that the word "accredit," and all its derivatives, should, in educational settings, become a "protected" term as a matter of law (like "lawyer" or "attorney," for example) so that only USDE- and/or CHEA-approved agencies may legally claim to either be accreditors, or to accredit anything. Her reason, like mine, is because doing so would rob diploma mill operators of a huge tool which they now use to convey their alleged credibility to hapless degree seekers: Claims of accreditation by made-up entities which turn out to be as bogus as they are!

    I wish CalBar would start using the term "approved" instead of "accredited." Even the ABA seems to make that distinction. If you read, carefully, pretty much all ABA documents regarding what kind of imprimatur it conveys to its law schools, it tends to use the word "approved" and not "accredited." And, in the ABA's case, that's not even necessary by my herein espoused criteria since ABA actually is a USDE- and/or CHEA-approved accreditor! Go figure.
     
  18. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I don't know how CalBar accreditation works. I DO know that CalBar represents that a given school's educational program meets or exceeds certain quality standards and that is the primary function of accreditation.

    Is it "accreditation"?

    Well, keep in mind that California is a "country" of 34 million residents with a "GDP" greater than that of all but, what, a dozen foreign countries? Something like that? There are NINETEEN CalBar schools! There are 200,000 California lawyers! It is entirely reasonable that CalBar would act as a "national" accreditation agency regardless of whether the federal government recognizes CalBar or not. The thing is just so BIG.
     
  19. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    According to WASC:
    Perhaps someone conversant in edu-speak can translate.

    WASC accreditation is scheduled to terminate on 12/16/05, but UWLA apparently plans to appeal. If so, accreditation will continue during the appeal.
     
  20. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    Interesting. If WASC (or, really, any accreditor) has a policy like that (which seems fair, incidentally), is the school permitted to cure the problems during the appeal period and then cite that -- more than it cites the errors it believes the accreditor made in coming to its conclusion (as would normally be the basis of any appeal) -- as the compelling reason to reverse its decision on appeal?

    Or is it the kind of deal where the accreditor expected the school to cure back when the accreditor was only warning about it; and that if the school screws-up to the point that it gets its accreditation yanked, that's it... the school's gotta' start all over again, from scratch?
     

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