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Cooley Grads Strike Out

Cooley law grads strike out

A federal appeals court decided that graduates of the largest Michigan law school are not entitled to a tuition refund if they don’t find a legal job.

The court ruled Tuesday that law school graduates from Thomas M. Cooley Law School, have no remedy despite against the law school for not being able to find gainful employment after graduation.

The graduates in their paperwork with the court made the argument that they were misled by fake employment statistics published by the school. The appeals court, however, said Michigan’s consumer protection law doesn’t apply, and the graduates put too much reliance on Cooley’s job survey of other graduates.

Cooley’s tuition ranges from $34,800 a year for 24 credits to $43,500 for 30 credits. As such, graduating law students claim that they significantly overpaid for a law degree since they are unable to find gainful employment in the legal industry.

The Cooley students point out that the school represented in the glossy brochures that “in 2010 that 76 percent of graduates were employed within nine months.” 

Nevertheless, the appeals court said it wasn’t fraud because the statistics included jobs from non-law related fields.

Mark Twain would be quick to point out to everybody that “there are lies, damned lies and statistics.”

Caveat Emptor