Note: This report has been updated to include comments by plaintiffs, their attorneys and two of the targeted law schools. The team of lawyers behind proposed class actions against the Thomas M. Cooley School of Law and New York Law School have followed through with their threat to sue even more schools. New York attorneys David Anziska and Jesse Strauss — along with consumer-protection lawyers in Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Sacramento and New Jersey — on Wednesday filed suits against 12 law schools in state and federal courts around the country, claiming that they inflated their graduate employment data. The complaints seek class action status, monetary damages and changes in the way the law schools report and audit employment data. The targeted schools were Albany Law School of Union University; Brooklyn Law School; California Western School of Law; Chicago-Kent College of Law; DePaul University College of Law; Florida Coastal School of Law; Golden Gate University School of Law; Hofstra University Maurice A. Deane School of Law; The John Marshall Law School; University of San Francisco School of Law; Southwestern Law School; and Widener University School of Law. Additional lawsuits will be forthcoming, according to Anziska. “Our goal is that every few months we will file between 20 and 25 lawsuits. The key, right now, is to bring as many law schools as possible into the fray,” he said. “Law schools are banking on the fact that their graduates will not sue them,” he added. “I think today dispels that notion.” Anziska and Strauss unveiled plans to sue the schools — with the exception of Golden Gate — in early October. At the time, they said they also planned to sue the University of Baltimore School of Law, Pace Law School and St. John’s University School of Law. Those three schools were not targeted in the subsequent lawsuits, however. Strauss said that a suit against Baltimore is coming but requires filing of a notice of claims with the Maryland treasurer. The other two schools had at least one plaintiff signed on, but the attorneys were waiting for at least three named plaintiffs before filing suit, Strauss said. Altogether, 51 plaintiffs have signed on to the 12 suits, in addition to the 22 plaintiffs in pending litigation against Cooley, New York Law School and the Thomas Jefferson School of Law. The suit against Thomas Jefferson was the first filed, in May, and is in discovery. The suit against DePaul has the largest number of plaintiffs, eight. Florida Coastal has the next largest, six. Officials at most of the targeted schools had not yet seen the complaints as of late Wednesday. Connie Mayer, interim president and dean of Albany Law School, said that institution follows the reporting protocols set out by the American Bar Association — a defense also offered by the three law schools that have already been sued. “We have documentation that supports the accuracy of our data,” she said. “We are surprised that we are being sued over this issue without ever having been asked to see our documentation. Albany Law School has always reported above the industry standard requirements: We collect and report on data for at least 98% of our graduates.” Kristen McMahon, director of public relations at Hofstra, declined to address the complaint’s merits, but insisted the schools has followed reporting standards set by the ABA and the National Association for Law Placement, NALP. Southwestern Law School stands by the employment data it has reported to the ABA and U.S. News & World Report and has published on its Web site, said Leslie Steinberg, the associate dean for public affairs. “We’ve always provided accurate data,” she said. “We gather as much information as comprehensively as possible. We update our Web site when more information becomes available.” Three of the 51 named plaintiffs spoke during a telephone news conference, recounting the role rosy employment statistics played in their decisions to attend law school. All three struggled to find gainful employment in the law after graduation; one joined the Army to help pay off $150,000 in law school debt. That plaintiff, Audra Awai, graduated from Florida Coastal in 2008 and abandoned a law career after seeing former classmates flounder in the job market. “I hope this lawsuit will encourage law schools to be more truthful in the future,” she said. Adam Bevelacqua, a 2011 graduate of Brooklyn Law School, praised the education he received there but said the school misled him about his job prospects. “The school advertised very high employment numbers, which stated that only between 5 and 10 percent of graduates did not find legal employment within nine months,” he said. “It turns out that I can’t get any work in the legal field at all — not even document review work.” Like the three previously filed suits against law schools, the new complaints charge that the schools deceived prospective students by hiring recent graduates so they could be counted as employed; counting graduates in non-legal jobs as employed; counting students in temporary jobs as employed; and reporting salary averages based upon a small number of high earners. All of the suits were filed in state court, with the exception of the suit against Widener, which was filed in the U.S. district court in New Jersey. Their language differs slightly, according to the differences in each state’s consumer protection laws. Strauss, Anziska and attorney Frank Raimond are handling the cases against Albany, Hofstra and Brooklyn Law School. Strauss graduated from Brooklyn in 2003. The Clinton Law Firm in Chicago is handling the cases against John Marshall, DePaul and Chicago-Kent. Attorney Ed Clinton Sr. represents plaintiffs against his own alma mater, John Marshall, from which he graduated in 1953. New Jersey firm Stone & Magnanini represents plaintiffs in the case against Widener. Miami firm Concepcion Martinez & Bellido is handling the case against Florida Coastal. California firms Finkelstein Thompson and Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff represent the plaintiffs against Golden Gate, the University of San Francisco, Southwestern Law School and California Western. “We strongly believe these cases have merit,” said Finkelstein Thompson attorney Rosemary Rivas. Contact Karen Sloan at [email protected]