Cooley Law School — an institution that recently gained public renown as the worst law school in America thanks to its association with Michael Cohen — is once again making headlines with some more bad news. Western Michigan University, which entered into an affiliation with the independent law school in 2014, has decided to part ways with Cooley, referring to the arrangement as a “distraction.”
Ouch.
Hot off the decision to close another one of its campuses at the end of the academic year, Cooley is now faced with losing its ties to a public research university that gave the school an air of legitimacy. Western Michigan spent the last year doing some soul searching and decided that the time had come to move on, with its Board of Trustees noting that things just weren’t working out as hoped between the two schools.
From the Board’s recommendation to end the arrangement between the schools:
It was the hope of both institutions that the affiliation would improve the quality of the educational experience for students at both institutions and would serve to enhance the reputation and standing of both institutions in the academic community. Several years after implementation those hopes have not been realized.
Cooley, which has had two accreditation battles in the past three years, was once the largest law school in the country with several campuses spread across two states, but thanks to prospective law students catching on to the fact that their employment prospects as graduates would be just as good as their chances of passing the bar exam (read: not-so great), both its real estate holdings and its student body shrunk. The law school even had its name plastered on a minor league baseball stadium for more than a decade, but even that has come to an end.
Western Michigan is also using the coronavirus crisis as its out with Cooley Law. Here’s more from the Board’s recommendation:
[T]he impact of the pandemic on higher education has led each institution to focus on their core missions. Much has changed at both organizations and in the world of legal education since 2013. The affiliation was intended to be a prelude to more joint programs and a closer collaboration between the institutions. Those intentions have not materialized in seven years, and they are not on the immediate horizon. Ventures not at the center of WMU’s strengths and mission have been eliminated to maintain focus and stability through these unprecedented times. The Board believes that affiliation with Cooley has become a distraction from the University’s core mission.
The vote to terminate the affiliation took place yesterday and was unanimous.
Just like a law student, it’ll take Western Michigan three years to get out of Cooley, but at least the university won’t be saddled with student loan debt. In November 2023, the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School will be no more, and only the Thomas M. Cooley Law School will remain.
Western Michigan University Ditches Cooley Law School [Law.com]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
Jordan Rothman is a partner of 
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at 
