I have been following Golden Gate University School of Law’s (GGU) closure since they announced it last November.
I look back when my alma mater Whittier Law School announced its intent to close on April 2017. Students protested and the faculty filed a lawsuit (which was ultimately dismissed) to stop the closure. And in August 2019, Whittier Law School shut its doors for good.
I’ve found that the people who were most affected by the closure were faculty and staff because they lost their jobs, and it may not have been easy to find other ones. Current law students and recent graduate students who have not yet established their careers were also upset. Alumni practicing for a number of years were sad and disappointed but didn’t care as much.
GGU claims that their decision to close was based on declining enrollments and failing to meet the ABA’s current bar passage standards.
Last February, a few students and the alumni association filed a lawsuit to stop the closure and possibly put the law school in a receivership. The complaint accuses GGU president David Fike of incompetence and financial mismanagement.
The lawsuit was recently dismissed, but the student plaintiffs will be allowed to amend their complaint and possibly keep the lawsuit active.
So it seems that from a student and young alumni’s perspective, the closure announcement is premature and frightening. Since a law school’s reputation is important for finding that first job after graduation, it can have irreparable consequences. The news would be more palatable to everyone if it came after all of their students graduated, were admitted to the bar and secured jobs. Whether this is feasible and why law schools make closure announcements so soon is a topic for a later column.
So to the GGU students and recent graduates who will be impacted by the closing, you have my sympathies. Right now, the legal job market is unpredictable and chaotic, although the legal sector lost over 4,000 jobs last January, according to the Labor Department.
Will GGU reverse their decision? That is impossible to tell, but GGU’s Board of Trustees and President Fike should take into account that the California State Bar has been reforming its bar exam. Also, law school applications have increased lately although whether that will increase GGU’s class size remains to be seen.
Future employers might ask about your opinion on the closure so have a few diplomatic answers ready.
Students who feel deceived by the closure announcement can try to get their student loans forgiven and possibly receive a refund of tuition paid by applying for the borrower’s defense program.
Best of luck to the GGU students and alumni. Hopefully something can be done to structure the law school closing process to ensure that current students and recent graduates will not have to explain why their law school closed to a future employer.
Steven Chung is a tax attorney in Los Angeles, California. He helps people with basic tax planning and resolve tax disputes. He is also sympathetic to people with large student loans. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. Or you can connect with him on Twitter (@stevenchung) and connect with him on LinkedIn.
