Class Certification Denied In Case Pitting Students Against Law School

How responsible is your school for ensuring you find employment after graduation? It all depends on the promises they make and the reasons that you chose them in the first place. Was I their marketing? Their reputation? Whether you can take legal action against a school based upon post-graduation employment statistics is a controversial issue, and the latest development in a landmark case only adds to the debate.

Different plaintiffs also had different employment statuses.

In Alaburda v. Thomas Jefferson School of Law, a case filed in 2011 by former students who accused the law school of misleading them through its U.S. News & World Report statistics, class certification has just been denied.

The case was originally filed by a 2008 graduate Anna Alaburda who, along with three other plaintiffs, sought to certify a class of graduates who used U.S. News’ law rankings when deciding where to study. The suit alleges that the rankings were misleading and overinflated post-graduate employment rates, and were a significant factor in plaintiffs’ decision to choose Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Plaintiffs hoped to certify a class of all those who used the rankings and studied at the law school between 2006 and 2013.

In his denial, Judge Joel Pressman of the San Diego County Superior Court ruled that using the U.S. News to define the class was impractical as there was no way to determine who did and did not use the report, and no way to prove how significant the report was in class members’ decisions. As membership determination would require self-authentication, he ruled, it would be unreliable in this case.

The lack of a well-defined community, due to the fact that students may have chosen the school for a number of reasons, also led the judge to deny certification. Different plaintiffs also had different employment statuses, making individual actions far more appropriate, he said.

Since it was filed, the lawsuit has prompted a number of other cases by former law school students seeking compensation for allegedly misleading recruitment practices. Four California law schools are currently facing legal action, and as many as fifteen fraud suits have been filed nationwide. The suits, however, have been met with mixed success. New York, Michigan and Illinois have dismissed cases, while a New Jersey case survived an initial challenge before also being dismissed. California’s more consumer-friendly laws have been credited with helping three lawsuits survive initial motions to dismiss.

Thomas Jefferson Law School’s attorneys were quick to praise the judge’s ruling while reiterating that the school continued to deny there was any basis for the lawsuit.

Plaintiffs in the case, however, have said they will continue taking legal action.

The question at the heart of this case is an interesting one. Since employment can never be guaranteed, it may be hard for plaintiffs to prove that their schools are directly responsible for post-graduation unemployment. On the other hand, ever-increasing competition between colleges had led to the publication of more detailed employment statistics and rankings. It is these statistics that schools must ensure are accurate or they could be facing accusations of misrepresentation and false marketing.

So, sour grapes or a legitimate grievance? Judge Pressman’s denial has more to do with the impracticalities of defining as class using the U.S. News reports than the merits of the case itself. Despite this setback, lawsuits across the country may yet continue to seek compensation if law students fail to find the employment they believe they were promised, and it will be up to judges to determine just how far a law school’s legal obligations go.