Class Action Lawsuits Filed Against Thomas Cooley Law School and NYLS Yesterday

Law School Transparency is reporting that class action lawsuits were filed against Thomas Cooley Law School and NYLS on August 10, 2011 alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation and deceptive business practices The plaintiffs claim that their law schools knowingly inflate reported rates of post-graduate employment and salary statistics to recruit and retain students. The plaintiffs seek from their defendant schools $250 million from Cooley and $200 million from NYLS in tuition refunds as well as other damages and reformed methods of reporting their graduates' placement statistics.

• MacDonald v. Cooley (Complaint)
• Gomez-Jimenez v. NYLS (Summons and Complaint)

In addition to providing the above-linked filings and background information, a summary of each complaint is available at Law School Transparency. Some early press coverage:

• Law Grads Sue Over Tuition (Wall Street Journal, paywalled)
• New York Law School Sued by Students Over Claims About Graduates’ Success (Bloomberg)
• New York Law School, Thomas Cooley accused of job statistics fraud (National Law Journal)
• Grads Sue New York Law School and Cooley Law, Saying They Inflated Job and Salary Stats (ABAJ)

Filling in while ATL's Elie Mystal is on vacation, Staci Zaretsky comments "Karmic revenge sure is sweet… ." at Cooley Law Gets Served Some of Its Own Medicine (NYLS Is Tardy to the Party).

So Now There Are Three. Alaburda v. Thomas Jefferson School of Law was filed in May of this year: Complaint and Demurrer.

Teachable Moment? All three lawsuits could provide great fodder for canned LWR 1L memo writing assignments. Even better, I'm thinking the issues presented could make for very student-engaged required moot court competitons, too. Cooley, NYLS and TJSL might be able to save some of the cost of legal fees if they follow up the moot court "suggestion."

Of interest, perhaps, see yesterday's LLB post, Incoming Thomas Cooley 1Ls Relax! You Really Are Attending the Second Best Law School in the Country. [JH]