Judge Dismisses Suit Alleging Misleading Jobs Stats at Albany Law School
A New York judge has dismissed a $50 million lawsuit contending Albany Law School misled would-be law students by publicizing an employment rate of about 95 percent.
Judge Richard Platkin dismissed the case in a Jan. 3 opinion, the New York Law Journal and Reuters report. The suit was among 15 class actions filed against law schools claiming misleading data, according to Jesse Strauss, a lawyer for plaintiffs in 14 of the cases. He told Reuters he would appeal the dismissal.
The suit was filed by four Albany law grads who said they didn’t realize the employment statistics included temporary and part-time jobs, as well as jobs not requiring a law degree.
Platkin said that reasonable college grads would not read “a host of assumptions” into an unembellished employment rate. “Insofar as plaintiffs’ decision to attend ALS turned on an employment rate limited to positions for which a JD is required or preferred, it was incumbent upon plaintiffs to ascertain whether ALS’s published data fit their particular assumptions and met their specific needs,” Platkin wrote.
Platkin is an Albany law grad who graduated as the school’s valedictorian in 1993, Reuters says.
