Every Little Fraction of a Point Matters: A Brief (Don't Know If Complete) Chronology of the Univ. of Illinois College of Law Administration's Unethical Conduct

2011: Gaming academic credentials of 1Ls since Class of 2011

Illinois Law Academic Credentials	Median LSAT	Median GPA
Class of 2014	163 (not 168)	3.7 (not 3.8)
Class of 2013	167	3.6 (not 3.8)
Class of 2012	165 (not 166)	3.7 (not 3.8)
Class of 2011	165 (not 166)	3.6

Quoting in pertinent part from U of I College of Law Dean Bruce Smith's recent email published on ATL:

I have previously reported to you that profile data (median LSAT and median GPA) for the class of 2014 disseminated by the College of Law were inaccurate, and that the College has since posted accurate, verified data on its website. Ten years of profiles have been rigorously reviewed, and the inquiry has now determined that student profile data for the classes of 2011, 2012, and 2013 were also inaccurate. The accurate, verified data for these classes (and the previously reported data, indicated in parentheses) are as follows: Class of 2011: LSAT 165 (166) and GPA 3.6 (3.6); Class of 2012: LSAT 165 (166) and GPA 3.7 (3.8); and Class of 2013: LSAT 167 (167) and GPA 3.6 (3.8).

See also the official press release dated Sept. 28, 2011.

In Illinois Law Restates Its Numbers: The Deception is Deeper Than We Thought, ATL's Elie Mystal comments

I haven’t made that big of a deal about this new restatement because it just doesn’t surprise me: if a school lied once, it probably lied many, many times.

...

I don’t expect the toothless American Bar Association to punish Illinois in any significant manner. But we might as well take a look at the depth of Illinois Law’s deception.

Not a bad idea, Elie. So let's proceed with a brief look at Illinois Law's history of unethical conduct, at least with respect to what is currently available to the public.

2009: Admitting "substandard" students who had clout: Extracting additional scholarship funds from the University and the jobs-for-admission scheme

U of I Law was admitting "substandard" applicants because their families had clout. A class action lawsuit filed in 2009 claimed the practice had been on-going since 1999. Don't know about that but the Chicago Tribune reported the College of Law wrangled approximately $304,000 in additional scholarship funds for admitting 24 "special admits" between 2004 and 2007. Why? I'm thinking to offer those scholarships to high LSAT/GPA applicants to even out the score. See this LLB post and its links trail.

Then the was the jobs for grads in exchange for accepting clout-heavy substandard students. Quoting from the Illinois Admissions Review Commission's Final Report and Recommendations (Aug. 6, 2009):

{T]he Chancellor participated in the formulation of a separate strategy purportedly to offset the harm that the Law School would suffer to its national ranking as a result of accepting substandard applicants. But far from offsetting any harm, the proposed jobs-for-admissions exchange only compounded the initial problem of clouted admissions and fed a culture of cynicism and crass opportunism unbecoming any public institution, much less our flagship university.

The Commission's Final Report also criticized former U of I Law dean Heidi Hurd for "personally and extensively participated in admissions applications in a manner inconsistent with University-sanctioned principles of ethical conduct and fair dealing."

2005: Inflating expenditures reported to US News for Lexis and Westlaw

With an anonymous hat tip for calling this one to my attention, let's quote from Alex Wellen's The $8.78 Million Maneuver (New York Times, July 31, 2005):

[I]n what it calls a longstanding practice, Illinois has calculated a fair market value for [WEXIS] online legal resources and submitted that number to U.S. News. For this year's rankings, the school put that figure at $8.78 million, more than 80 times what LexisNexis and Westlaw actually charge. This inflated expense accounted for 28 percent of the law school's total expenditures on students, according to confidential data filed with U.S. News and the bar association and provided to The New York Times by legal educators who are critical of rankings and concerned about the accurate reporting of data

...

These student expenditures affect only 1.5 percent of a school's U.S. News ranking, but this is a competition where fractions of a point matter.

(Emphasis added)

Fair market value, really? What damn market sector? Ever get a Westlaw "report" that states for $XX,XXX cost per year you are getting $X,XXX,XXX value per year. No one pays list price and there is no way in hell to determine fair market value for WEXIS in the private sector because that is confidential information. So U of I Law had to taken this list price nonsense as being "fair market" value. Of course, that assumes a "fair market" metric is a non-deceptive substitute for actual WEXIS expenditures by U of I Law. No way in hell it was. 

Hello Parents. Want your sons and daughter to bend and break the ethical norms of the legal profession, then send them to the U of Illinois College of Law. If this institution's track record does not require an enforceable code of conduct on all law school administrators -- one not "administrated" by the ABA -- what will?

What about the law faculty? Do we exclude the law faculty from being required to blow the whistle. I don't think so. Most law schools have admission committees run by law faculty to review applications, etc. You can bet they are involved in crunching LSAT/GPA scores in the process -- I've been in the faculty lounge and at faculty meetings where this is a "hot topic." The law faculty may not be directly involved in reporting false data to the ABA and US News for LSAT/GPA stats, inflated expenditures per student stats and placement stats. Is that because the law faculty wants plausible deniability?

And despite this long history of unethical behavior (or that part which is public knowledge), U of Illinois Law isn't even on double secret probation while the administration is behaving like the Animal House of the legal academy. [JH]