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Faculty and students at Indiana Tech Law School in Fort Wayne received bad news in June: The American Bar Association denied the school provisional accreditation, just four days after the council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar met with law school officials.
“While we are disappointed not to receive accreditation at this time, we were encouraged that the council narrowed the issue we need to focus on, and we believe that the council has provided us with good feedback as we begin the reapplication process,” Indiana Tech Law School Dean Charles Cercone said.
The dean said the ABA council wants to see the law school better develop its curriculum and provide more academic support to its students. The school has touted its hands-on approach to legal education and, the dean said, has no plans to change direction.
The school has reapplied for accreditation and expects to hear from the ABA in June 2016.
A concern after the denial was that the students starting their third year would opt to transfer to an accredited law school. Indiana does not allow graduates of unaccredited law schools to sit for the bar exam. However, Cercone said in August that only one member of the Class of 2016 decided to leave because of that.
Also in August, the Indiana Supreme Court decided to allow the law school’s third-year students to apply to take the state bar exam in July 2016. But if the law school does not gain provisional accreditation, the graduates who applied to take the bar exam will not be eligible to sit for the test.
The incoming Class of 2018 has 15 students who have a median LSAT score of 151 and a median GPA of 3.42. This is the smallest group yet to enroll in the Fort Wayne law school that opened in 2013. The institution’s first two classes each had about 30 students, and the Class of 2017 came with a median LSAT of 148.•
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