Massachusetts School of Law Starts Its Own Undergraduate Feeder College

Usually it is the other way around. It is the undergraduate school that starts a law school.

Massachusetts School of Lawl has always been perplexing to me. One, I am not sure I would recommend someone to apply to a non-ABA law school, just because of the restrictions it causes with licensing upon graduation. There is also something to be said for supervision. On the other hand, at least one of the missions of MSL is to provide an affordable law school education. There is no doubt that many of the ABA rules on accreditation are simply antiquated and are extreme costly. This, along with ranking concerns, drastically increases tuition much further than it needs to be. Should MSL obtain ABA approval, it is pretty certain it will not be educating lawyers for $15,000.00 a year.

And, you cannot argue with MSL's' results. It has a good name, it accepts 70% of those apply, and yet 79% of their first-time takers passed the Massachusetts bar in 2009.

Unconventional is MSL's trademark. In that regard, in a kind of reverse engineering, the law school has started the American College of History and Legal Studies in Salem, New Hampshire as a feeder school.

ACHLS is as unconventional as is MSL. The law school provided the funding for ACHLS for the purpose of funneling students to it. It is essentially a senior college campus. Students who do well in their first year at ACHLS can combine their last year of undergraduate work with their first year of law school.

The college grew out of Dean Lawrence Velvel's concerns about students entering law school with weak writing skills and a near-total lack of American history knowledge.

The college is no-frills and consist currently of a half dozen offices and classrooms in an office building. Classes are held from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. three nights a week. The students merely sit at folding tables, there are no lectures, only Q&A, and lots of assigned reading.

The entering class consisted of only 5 students and ACHLS is not yet approved by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/nation/in-unique-step-massachusetts-law-school-starts-its-own-undergrad-feeder-college-in-nh-104664984.html#ixzz125WjNeeC

Comments

[Lisa]

Massachusetts School of Law is horrible. I graduated from there in 2000. I successfully passed the bar on the first time and was admitted to practice in 2001. I graduated 10 years ago. They took my money, helped me pass the bar, but now consistently cause me to lose multiple teaching jobs because they refuse to release your transcripts no matter how much you offer to pay them until 15 business days have gone by. This is ridiculous! I have a BA and MA. Both of those schools will overnight official transcripts provided I will pay all the fees. Massachusetts School of Law does not care, they will not release your transcripts. Funny, Louise Rose is the only one in the school that can release transcripts and she is the dean's wife. Funny she is home busy cleaning her house for a holiday party and does not have time to process transcript requests. Do NOT pay all this money to go there and spend all the time to pass the bar because you will not be able to get a job thanks to Louise Rose NOT doing her job and releasing your transcripts and NO I DO NOT OWE A PENNY TO THE SCHOOL! BEWARE!