We have posted great, good and bad things about Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
Click here to see our general discussion of the law school.
We've talked about Cooley in terms of the meaningless of the U.S. News rankings.
And, we have got to admit that we have been a little perplexed over the years as to why would Cooley opened 4 separate campuses in the same state of Michigan. Michigan? Like that is the state everyone around the country secretly desires to spend the next three to four years of their lives?
Cooley has to be one of most innovative law schools around, if your objective is to get a law degree, pass the bar, and practice law without a bunch of high fives and butt slaps about the prestige of the place. Cooley is also a not-for-profit law school chain of law, unlike for-profit law schools of the The InfiLaw System.
Cooley, like every other law school in the country, is letting tuition get out of hand. Currently, it is at $34,340.00 per year, but the school does give away a lot of money in the way of scholarships.
Cooley has to have one of the best websites of any law school. It is upfront about its tuition, costs and financing, as is not true for a good many law schools in which you have to dig for the information. You can instantly get a feel as to whether admission is possible, and what your likely scholarship might be, if any. Let us just say the website is content rich and most law school websites are content poor, or at best mediocre.
Generally, Cooley is about options. You can, for example attend any campus you wish, attend classes when it is best for you, and you can start your law school career anytime throughout the year. Very few, if any law schools, offer you this degree of flexibility.
Now, Cooley is offering even more alternatives. The ABA Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has acquiesced to Cooley's application to open a new Tampa Bay-area campus in Riverview, Florida.
The campus will begin offering evening classes in May 2012, morning classes in September 2012, and afternoon classes in 2013.
Tampa Bay is great because, although law school can be time consuming, it does not mean you are dead to the world, or that you need to be cloistered for three or four years. There is a lot to do in the Tampa Bay metro area.
The Greater Tampa Bay area has just over 4 million residents. It is home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (football), Tampa Bay Lightning (hockey), Tampa Bay Storm (arena football), Tampa Bay Rays (minor league baseball), and the FC Tampa Bay Rowdies (North American Soccer League).
Tampa Bay has been ranked by Forbes as the 5th best outdoor city in the nation. The Washington Square News ranked Tampa as a top city for "twenty-somethings".
Regardless of your politics, Tampa has been tapped to host the 2012 Republican National Convention.
Cooley is traditionally good about given people an opportunity to attend law school who might not otherwise have that opportunity. The school tends to rank college GPA higher than most other schools in selecting students. Their class size is large enough for the school to take some chances. And, it is the champion of providing non-traditional education options, such as weekend law school and evening classes for those who have to work in order to afford law school.
It will be fun to see Cooley's Tampa Bay-area campus progress. It might be an alternative for you as well, if you are considering law school.
Last I looked the Tampa Bay Rays were a "major" league baseball team, presently in the playoffs after beating out the Boston Red Sox.
Posted by: scott hinote | October 03, 2011 at 07:26 PM