A lawsuit accusing Thomas Jefferson School of Law of inflating data on the post-graduate success of its students has been cleared for trial.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Joel Pressman issued a ruling last week that denied the school’s motion for the suit to be tossed, saying there are issues in the lawsuit that should be tried before a jury.

Four former students filed the lawsuit in 2011 accusing the school of misrepresenting how many graduates went on to get jobs in the legal profession. The students said they would have never enrolled in the school had they known the data had been skewed.

The downtown San Diego law school argued that the students had not presented evidence showing that the data was a substantial factor in their decision to attend the school. It further argued that the job data couldn’t have been that important, because the school was the only one that had admitted the four students.


The students contended that they’d rather have forgone law school altogether than attend one that misrepresents its employment figures.

Pressman wrote in his ruling that Thomas Jefferson did not meet its burden to show that the figures were, in fact, accurate. Instead, the school submitted a deposition from a dean who said she was not aware of any occasions when the school misreported its employment numbers and that she does not know if they are inaccurate.

This is the fourth time the school has asked the court to throw out the case. However, in a previous win for the school, the judge declined the students’ request to make it a class action suit, which would have opened it up to a larger group of students.

The school’s most recent employment reporting shows 18 percent of its graduates from the class of 2013 got a job that required a law degree or passage of the bar exam, according to U.S. News & World Report.


kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com