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Brooklyn Law School Dean advises ABA on finances of legal education

August 11, 2014 By Charisma L. Miller, Esq. Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Dean Nick Allard of Brooklyn Law School. File photo
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At the annual American Bar Association (ABA) meeting, Brooklyn Law School’s (BLS) Dean Nick Allard advised the Task Force on Financing Legal Education on varying and innovative ways to assist students worried about the mounting cost of law school debt.

“As you may recall, BLS has received sustained national attention for your leadership in overhauling the broken business model of law schools including reducing its tuition fifteen percent, providing low cost housing to students, increasing need based aid while relying less on merit scholarships and expanding post graduate loan repayment programs supporting continuation of successful federal loan programs for graduates who work in low pay jobs serving the unmet legal needs of the poor,” Allard told the institution’s trustees.

Allard presented the BLS model to the ABA in Boston at its meeting Sunday morning.

The Task Force on Financing Legal Education was established in March with the purpose of looking at the current cost of law school education, how students finance that education and the ramifications of student loans on the interest in and attainability of a legal education.

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By looking at how current schools are dealing with high law school debts of its students, the ABA hopes to use school like BLS to ascertain how best to handle these issues. 

“As law school tuitions and educational debt loads increase at the same time employment opportunities for recent graduates are constrained, the ABA needs to lead a thorough examination of the financing of legal education and law schools,” ABA President James Silkenat said. “Members of the ABA Task Force on the Financing of Legal Education will conduct a comprehensive study of the complex economic and political issues involved and produce sound recommendations to inform policymakers throughout the legal community.”

The Task Force will issue a report at the end of 2014.  


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