Class Actions Filed Against Cooley, NYLS Over Fraudulent Placement Data

Law School Transparency reports that two class action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of seven graduates against Thomas M. Cooley Law School and New York Law School:

This action seeks to remedy a systemic, ongoing fraud that is ubiquitous in the legal education industry and threatens to leave a generation of law students in dire financial straits. Essentially, Plaintiffs want to bring an element of “sunlight” or transparency to the way law schools report post-graduate employment data and salary information, by requiring that they make critical, material disclosures that will give both prospective and current students a more accurate picture of their post-graduate financial situation, as opposed to the status quo where law schools are incentivized to engage in all sorts of legerdemain when tabulating employment statistics.

From the class action law firm's press release:

Two class action lawsuits alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation and deceptive business practices were filed today against New York Law School (“NYLS”) and Thomas M. Cooley Law School (“Thomas Cooley”). The suits allege that the schools knowingly inflate reported rates of post-graduate employment and salary statistics to recruit and retain students. The putative class actions were filed by three NYLS graduates and four Thomas Cooley graduates, respectively.

“These suits are not just about NYLS and Thomas Cooley – we believe the practice of inflating employment statistics and salary information is endemic among law schools” stated David Anziska an attorney at Kurzon Strauss LLP (“Kurzon Strauss”). “We hope these suits bring systematic change in the way legal education is marketed by making transparency and accuracy the rule, not the exception. Our efforts to bring about that change begin today.”

In addition to seeking monetary relief for current and former students, the suits seek to ensure that law schools report accurate post-graduate employment data that allows prospective students to make an informed decision regarding whether to invest in a law degree. The suits allege that to recruit students for their programs – which cost tens-of-thousands of dollars per-year – law schools, including NYLS and Thomas Cooley, misrepresent their graduates’ employment prospects by misclassifying graduates who have only secured temporary or part-time employment as being “fully” employed, excluding graduates who do not supply information from employment surveys, and creating post-graduate “jobs programs” into which they hire their own graduates.

• Gomez-Jimenez v. New York Law School Complaint
• MacDonald v. Thomas M. Cooley Complaint

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• Law School Sues Law Firm and Bloggers for Criticizing its Placement Data (July 15, 2011)
• Website of Class Action Lawsuit v. Law School (June 8, 2011)
• Grad Files $50m Class Action v. Law School for Misrepresenting Placement Data (May 27, 2011)

Update:  More on Lawsuits Against Cooley, NYLS Over Fraudulent Placement Data