New York Law School can breathe a sigh of relief.
Yesterday an appeals court affirmed a lower court’s decision to toss a suit in which a group of angry graduates sued the school for misleading them about employment opportunities after graduation.
The Appellate Division, First Department, upheld the Manhattan Supreme Court’s dismissal of nine graduates’ $200 million class action. The former students accused New York Law School of publishing post-graduate employment data that didn’t indicate that the figures included nonlegal and part-time jobs, which inflated salary expectations. The students argued that the misleading data fooled them into attending the school and left them debt-ridden without jobs.
“While we are troubled by the unquestionably less than candid and incomplete nature of defendant's disclosures, a party does not violate (the law) by simply publishing truthful information and allowing consumers to make their own assumptions about the nature of the information,” Justice Ronaldo Acosta wrote for a unanimous five-judge panel.
The suit against New York Law School is just one of a slew of lawsuits that law school grads have filed against their alma maters in the past year. So far, judges have dismissed suits against Cooley Law School, DePaul University’s College of Law, John Marshall Law School and Chicago-Kent College of Law.
For more recent InsideCounsel stories about law schools, read:
Law schools cut size of entering classes, adjust curriculums
Judge dismisses suits against John Marshall, Kent
Law school falsified jobs data, according to ex-employee
Justice Thomas says law school rankings cause discrimination
Rankings shouldn’t be primary concern for prospective law school students
