FULLERTON, Calif., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, Calif., may lose its national accreditation, severely jeopardizing student recruitment.
American Bar Association accreditation brings the commercial law school prestige and allows its graduates to take the bar exam anywhere in the country.
But now the school, which counts as alumni nearly a quarter of Orange County's judges and commissioners, is facing the loss of its ABA accreditation, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.
The ABA is concerned about the low number of students passing the bar, low Law School Aptitude Test scores and the high number of dropouts, said Don Daucher, Western's lawyer.
If the school loses the designation, few states, if any, other than California would allow its graduates to sit for the exam required to practice law.
And even in California the students would have to take extra steps before they could take the test.
Western received provisional accreditation from the ABA in 1998, a step toward gaining full accreditation, which usually comes three to five years later.
