Ave Maria Law School Backpedals on Release of Detailed Jobs Data
Updated: The Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Fla., has backpedaled from a pledge to disclose more detailed job statistics.
Ave Maria made news last September when it told Law School Transparency it would disclose the data. Now the school has informed the group that it won’t participate after all, according to the Law School Transparency website.
Law School Transparency was formed to collect employment data showing how much value graduates get from their law degrees. The group wrote to 199 law schools seeking data about their grads, including whether their positions are full- or part-time, whether their jobs require a law license, and their salaries after nine months. Ave Maria was the only law school pledging it would definitely participate.
Now Ave Maria has indicated it believes in more transparency, but it doesn’t want to act before the ABA considers possible changes in required reporting of jobs data, according to Law School Transparency. The school is also concerned about being the only school participating in disclosure, since students won’t be able to compare Ave Maria stats to those of other schools.
Ave Maria provided the ABA Journal with the following statement: “Since our earlier indication that we would provide data, the ABA has undertaken concrete action to address this issue, and we are satisfied that meaningful steps are in motion. In light of these recent developments, coupled with our concerns about the confidentiality of personal information about our graduates (which is a special concern at a small law school such as ours), we have decided to give the ABA’s leadership a fair chance to address this issue before acting independently, and for now, to withdraw from the Transparency Project.”
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “ABA Young Lawyers Want Law Schools to Provide Better Jobs, Salary Data Up Front”
ABAJournal.com: “ABA Weighs Required Disclosure of Law School Job Stats, More Rigorous Reporting”
ABA Journal: “Law School? Bag It, Bloggers Say: More disgruntled grads are ‘scamblogging’ their job frustrations”
ABAJournal.com: “Villanova Says Inaccurate LSAT and GPA Data Were ‘Knowingly Reported’ to the ABA in Prior Years”
ABAJournal.com: “New Nonprofit Asks Law Schools for Detailed Salary, Job Information”
Updated at 3:34 p.m. to include statement from Ave Maria.
