Northwestern to end accelerated JD program
Image from Shutterstock.
Northwestern University School of Law is pulling the plug on its accelerated JD program.
The decision was announced in a news release and email on Friday to the law school community from Dean Daniel B. Rodriguez, Above the Law reports.
In the email, Rodriguez acknowledged that the program has not been as popular as school officials originally envisioned. When the program was announced in 2008, the school expected it would eventually grow to 40 new students per year.
Though he offered no numbers, Rodriguez said the program’s current enrollment is “much smaller than desired and necessary to meet our program objectives and warrant the continued allocation of administrative resources to ensure its success.”
Rodriguez also blamed “recent changes in ABA regulations” for limiting the school’s ability to enroll a sizable cohort of students from the pool of GMAT test-takers, an apparent reference to a 2012 change in the law school reporting requirements that requires schools to report all the LSAT scores of students who took the LSAT, whether or not those scores factored into the admissions process.
“I am certain that in another era, under differing economic circumstances, and under a more flexible regulatory climate, this program would have flourished,” he wrote. “Indeed, at some point, it still may.”
But Barry Currier, the ABA’s managing director of accreditation and legal education, said there has been no change in the accreditation standards that would prevent Northwestern from continuing its accelerated JD program. He also said the change in the reporting requirements was made in service of the idea that all information schools are required to report should be complete, accurate and not misleading.
Students currently in the program will be allowed to finish their degrees, but no further incoming classes will be admitted, according to the press release.
