Cooley Law School to Open a Campus in Tampa, Fla.
The Thomas M. Cooley Law School will open a campus near Tampa, Fla., far from its home state of Michigan.
Cooley received ABA approval to open the campus last week, the Lansing State Journal reports. Cooley is already the nation’s largest law school, with more than 3,900 students and four campuses in Michigan.
Cooley president Don LeDuc tells the newspaper that the Florida campus will begin operating next year, and is expected to enroll about 700 students by the fall of 2015. The Florida school may draw students from the Lansing campus, however. “If we don’t gain a single student, have no growth, this is still a good move for us,” he said.
Florida students already make up about 5 percent of Cooley’s law school classes, and Florida trails only Michigan as the state where most of its grads practice. LeDuc says the school currently has “a transfer problem” in which students transfer to law schools in their home states or the states where they hope to practice.
“Some of this is offense,” he tells the Lansing State Journal. “You’re out there trying to get your students. Some of it is defense. You’re trying to avoid losing to new schools.”
Prior coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Grads Sue New York Law School and Cooley Law, Saying They Inflated Job and Salary Stats”
