Touro College vs. Novus

[Groundhog]

You are correct, but I mean that the State Bar isn't generally an accreditation agency.

I haven't seen anywhere currently where Novus Law School fraudulently claims they allow California or any other bar admission besides DC without attorney study, so I'm not sure on what grounds the California AG could sue. Novus may have claimed something different in the past, but Ms. Harris has only been in office a few years.

It does appear to be a degree mill, but I don't see anything fraudulent about it. It sounds like the facts in the past in the Touro v. Novus case were different.

[legalpractitioner]

Cal Bar instead of Touro should have filed this - it is not like they don't have staff.  After all they go after lawyers for minor to major infractions of the rules - seems they could have done it if they wanted to or at least referred it to the AG.  If it's a diploma mill as Touro alleges than you can be certain they are in violation of at least a few laws in California.

[Groundhog]

California is notorious for having almost no statutory authority to regulate degree mills and for-profit institutions. Also, as Novus does not claim to offer degrees that are approved by the California Bar, I don't see what the Bar would have to do with it.

See: http://www.examiner.com/article/california-tops-list-of-u-s-states-with-most-diploma-mills
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diploma_mills_in_the_United_States#Legal_status
http://www.geteducated.com/college-degree-mills/347-top-10-states-diploma-mill-degree-mills

[legalpractitioner]

I guess Novus did it's research when it chose California as its operation HQ.  I will say it is virtually impossible to get the AG's office to act on a consumer complaint.  The fact that Touro got Novus served and to answer is impressive.

[barprephero]

The complaint said a Novus grad launched a frivolous lawsuit against Touro, when Touro would not honor their bogus degree.  So Touro had to pay legal fees because Novus was falsely telling grads they had a "foreign law degree" and all they had to do is enroll for a LLM to qualify for the bar.

Don't law schools have the right to refuse admissions to anyone?

[barprephero]

I think Novus gets away with this since they are incorporated in the Marshall Islands (which is kind of its own nation, and kind of America) but it also does most of its business in CA.

I think since they disclose they are not approved to sit the bar with it alone that it will win. CA lets pretty much anything call itself a "school". Albeit I am reading their disclosures as an ABA law school graduate, and I can just imagine the person who barely earned a GED enrolling by doing their "undergrad" at Novus too (which they offer) At one point (pre LSAT) I almost fell for SCUPS(no longer in existence) which to be fair can sit the CA bar but was unaccredited and not good for the majority of the nation.

[barprephero]

I think that http://www.bppe.ca.gov/ would have the best grounds for a suit since in theory they control who can and can't be legally a "school" operating in CA. The Marshall Islands argument might come up, but I think "International Shoe" would be a winning counter argument to that.

[Groundhog]

I think that http://www.bppe.ca.gov/ would have the best grounds for a suit since in theory they control who can and can't be legally a "school" operating in CA. The Marshall Islands argument might come up, but I think "International Shoe" would be a winning counter argument to that.

International Shoe is about jurisdiction. The issue here is if the 2009 statute that re-created the BPPE even covers online schools or how California or any state can regulate them. It does not appear to do so. As you said, it appears that Novus is based in the Marshall Islands, not in California as was suggested.

I don't know what's worse: the fact that some of these students spent years and thousands of dollars thinking they could become an attorney...or that they actually did. “Novus graduates often apply and are erroneously accepted to American Bar Association-accredited programs,” Touro charged.

[barprephero]

I mentioned in for the sake of jurisdiction (also why I mentioned marshal islands)

[barprephero]

Personally I don't see why it would a "bad" thing if later accepted into ABA programs. If an LLM let you in, good. As long as they can keep up (if) go for it.

I would support Novus (and the ones like it) for someone IF, 1. Its legal to use an unaccredited degree in their jurisdiction (as far as strictly for resumes), and 2. They were going to "Read for the law" anyways and ALREADY had it all lined up.

They give false hope telling people that they "could" do that (good luck if joe from the street with no connections) and list the SSA advocates and stuff, which  is also largely misleading since you could do that without even a GED legally.