Link: American Bar Association Grants Full Accreditation to Ave Maria School of Law.
Accreditation Received in Shortest Time Possible
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Aug. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Ave Maria School of Law announced today that it has received full accreditation from the American Bar Association (ABA). The Law School, which first opened for classes in fall 2000 and received ABA provisional accreditation in August 2002, has been granted full accreditation in the shortest time frame possible.
"We are delighted that the ABA has recognized the quality of our legal education and moved so swiftly to grant us full accreditation," said Bernard Dobranski, Dean and President of Ave Maria School of Law. "When we founded the Law School, our goal was to establish a school that combined a high quality, rigorous curriculum with an ethical component grounded in natural law and the Catholic intellectual tradition.
"The ABA's recognition ensures that we have achieved this goal and further establishes our credentials among the country's finest law schools," continued the Dean.
Achieving ABA accreditation signifies that a particular law school provides a "sound" legal education of high quality, as described by the ABA. In many states, graduation from an ABA-accredited law school is a prerequisite for taking the bar exam.
Not all law schools are granted accreditation on their first attempts, said Dobranski, who served on the Accreditation Committee of the ABA's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar during his tenure as Dean at Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C.
Full accreditation is available only after a law school has been in existence for five years and has satisfied the ABA's standards. The ABA House of Delegates granted accreditation by a voice vote at its annual conference in Chicago, ratifying the decision of the ABA's Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.
"Achieving ABA accreditation speaks to the high caliber of our faculty, staff, and students," said Thomas S. Monaghan, founder and Chairman of the Board of Governors of Ave Maria School of Law. "It has been their dedication and hard work that have enabled the Law School to reach this significant milestone so quickly. Dean Dobranski and his team are to be commended. It is personally rewarding for me to see how far we have come in the last five years, and I am excited about what the future holds for Ave Maria School of Law and our graduates."
In its five years, Ave Maria has established itself as providing a distinctive legal education that integrates a Catholic world view, an approach that has generated widespread interest. Since its opening, Ave Maria has enrolled students from 45 states and abroad and from nearly 200 colleges and universities.
Ave Maria graduates have achieved success outside the classroom, with graduates of its first two classes scoring highest among all Michigan law schools on the Michigan bar examination. Members of the Law School's first graduating class achieved a 93 percent pass rate among first-time test takers on the 2003 Michigan Bar exam, and the second graduating class earned a 100 percent pass rate among first-time test takers the following year. Graduates have accepted positions with the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Army and Air Force JAG programs, federal judges and various law firms.