Indiana Tech Law School will close after $20M loss
Updated: After suffering a nearly $20 million loss, Indiana Tech Law School has announced it will close at the end of June 2017.
Indiana Tech president Arthur Snyder said the school’s board of trustees and its leaders concluded that the law school will not be able to attract a sufficient number of students to remain viable, report the News-Sentinel, 21Alive and WANE.com. The school had opened in 2013.
The board vote to close the school was unanimous. Above the Law posted a school Q-and-A about the closing here.
The school had earned provisional accreditation from the ABA, which allowed its students to take the bar exam. Twelve of the school’s 20 graduates took the July 2016 state bar exam, and initially only one passed.
After an appeal, a second graduate passed, and a third graduate passed a state bar outside of Indiana, Above the Law and the Indiana Lawyer reported in early October.
The school’s $15 million law building is expected to be used for other university purposes, according to the News-Sentinel.
The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar said in a statement (PDF) that it was informed of the school’s intent to close. ABA rules governing law school accreditation require the school to submit for ABA review a “teach-out plan” to help students find reasonable opportunities to complete their education without additional charges.
“We will follow the requirements of that rule and expect the institution and the law school will do the same,” the statement says.
Updated on Nov. 1 to include the statement by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.
