Anne Ryman

The Republic | azcentral.com

A for-profit law school in downtown Phoenix that is struggling with falling bar-passage rates is moving to affiliate with one of the country’s historically black colleges and universities.

Arizona Summit Law School has signed an affiliation agreement with the private, nonprofit Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida.

The law school, founded in 2004, once boasted bar passage rates of 97 percent but has seen its percentages drop to 25 percent among first-time test takers.

School officials said they have made several changes aimed at improving bar passage, and that the affiliation with Bethune-Cookman will enable them to benefit from the university's academic support services and marketing. A university official also will serve on Arizona Summit's board of trustees.

The deal would allow both schools to pursue their objectives of diversifying the legal profession, officials said.

"This enables us to take it to a much higher level sooner, swifter and with greater impact," Arizona Summit President Donald Lively said.

Bethune-Cookman President Edison Jackson said in a statement, “Together, we aim to be a leading force in disrupting a legacy of exclusion that has persisted into the 21st century.”

The affiliation needs the approval of several accrediting bodies, including the American Bar Association and the Arizona Board of Private Postsecondary Education.

The agreement doesn't make Arizona Summit a nonprofit school. However, Lively said the school is working toward nonprofit status.

Summit’s owner, InfiLaw Corp., also owns law schools in North Carolina and Florida, and the parent company has been controversial in legal circles.

A sister school, the Charlotte School of Law, was put on probation by the American Bar Association last year for two years because of concerns over its bar-passage rates, and the U.S. Department of Education in December yanked the Charlotte school’s eligibility for students to receive federal student loans.

All three InfiLaw schools were founded more than a decade ago under the mission of diversifying the legal profession.

Arizona Summit has won awards for its diverse student population, which is about 43 percent minority students.

Many of the Summit’s students come to law school in a “catch-up mode,” Interim Dean Penny Willrich said in a recent interview with The Arizona Republic. Some are from poor families. They are astute, bright and want to become attorneys, she said.

“What we try to do is meet our students where they are when they come in the door,” she said.

But legal experts and law-school watchdogs question whether Arizona Summit admitted too many students. The school, formerly known as the Phoenix School of Law, once had as many as 1,000 students as it admitted more students with lower Law School Admission Test scores.

That, combined with a change in curriculum, resulted in fewer students passing the bar on the first try, officials said.

Lively said it’s important to focus on where the school is going, rather than judge Arizona Summit solely on its recent bar-passage performance, which has dipped from 55 percent in July 2014 to 25 percent in July 2016 among first-time test takers, after peaking at 97 percent in 2008. Results of the February bar exam won’t be available until May.

Lively said the school has made several changes aimed at improving students’ chances of passing the bar the first time. This includes assigning faculty mentors to students and shrinking the student body to about 300.

About Arizona Summit Law School

Location: Central Avenue and Washington Street, downtown Phoenix.

Enrollment: About 300.

Owner: InfiLaw Corp., a privately held, for-profit company in Naples, Florida.

Bar-passage rates: First-time test takers: 25%. State average is 63%. Arizona State University is 77%. University of Arizona is 74%.

Average GPA of incoming students: 2.96. ASU is 3.64. UA is 3.57.

Median LSAT score of students: 143. ASU is 161. UA is 161.

Minority student percentage: 43%. ASU is 27%. UA is 31%.

Sources:Arizona Supreme Court; Standard 509 form, American Bar Association

About Bethune-Cookman University

Location: Daytona Beach, Florida.

Enrollment: 3,934.

Owner: Private, nonprofit school.

Programs: Most popular majors are criminal justice, business administration, nursing, psychology, biology and mass communication.

History: Mary McLeod Bethune started the school as a literary and industrial-training school in 1904 with $1.50 and five students. The school merged in 1923 with the Cookman Institute of Jacksonville and became coed. It also became affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Over the years, the college added more academic majors on the 85-acre campus. From 1943 to 2015, more than 13,200 students have graduated from the university.

Source: Bethune-Cookman University

Reach the reporter at 602-444-8072 or anne.ryman@arizonarepublic.com.