Boise’s Concordia Law School will have to wait longer to find out if its first graduating class will be able to practice law in Idaho. The more than 40 students in Concordia’s class of 2015 expected to find out Monday if they’d be able to take the bar exam when they graduate. Instead, the American Bar Association (ABA) told them they’d have to keep waiting.
Concordia is not ABA accredited. Every new law school has to go through a multi-year accreditation process and Concordia, which opened in the fall of 2012, is no exception. Students knew when they signed up they were taking a risk.
In the school’s ideal scenario, it will have provisional accreditation by 2015 which will allow its first graduates to take the bar, then get full accreditation later. But instead of saying yea or nay on the provisional accreditation, the bar association said it needs more time to decide. The ABA’s Council on Legal Education plans to appoint a fact finder to come to Boise for a closer look at the school.
Idaho’s Supreme Court has already denied Concordia’s request that its 2015 grads be allowed to take the state bar regardless of its accreditation status.
Concordia is the only place in southern Idaho that offers all three years of law school. The Boise law school is part of Portland-based Concordia University.
Follow reporter Adam Cotterell on Twitter @cotterelladam
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