By Chelsea Phipps
- iStock
A Michigan court dismissed a lawsuit on Friday brought by former students of Cooley Law School who accused their alma mater of misrepresenting recent graduate job placement statistics.
The former Cooley Law grads were seeking $ 250 million in damages, claiming they decided to attend Cooley based on what they said was misinformation from the school. Law Blog reported on the case here.
But Judge Gordon Quist, who got the case, wasn’t buying it. The court dismissed lawsuit on the grounds that purchasing a legal degree is not protected by the Michigan Consumer Protection Act.
Even if it was, the job numbers at stake were “literally true” whether they differentiated between recent grads in legal jobs vs. non-legal jobs or not, the court stated, adding that the grads “unreasonably relied upon the representations” in question in their law school decision.
The plaintiffs’ attorney and Cooley Law School’s legal counsel did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
The court’s decision follows a similar dismissal in state court of a lawsuit by former grads against New York Law School.
The American Bar Association released more detailed data this year, requiring that law schools report what types of jobs recent graduates are obtaining, including whether they require a legal license.