Yesterday, Fumare shared an Ave Maria School of Law alumni email that summarizes AMSL’s place in the 2009 U.S. News ranking of law schools.

• peer assessment:  1.3 out of 5 (same as 2008)
• lawyer/judge assessment:  1.9 out of 5 (down from 2.1)
• GPA and LSAT percentile scores:  all down from 2008
• student acceptance rate:  got worse
• student/faculty ratio:  got worse
• Michigan bar passage rate:  decreased sharply from 96.3% to 75%

The Alumni Association Board of Directors – who apparently sent the email – goes on to remind people that these numbers were taken prior to relocation to Florida, as if the move will help with GPA, LSAT, student/faculty ratio, or any other metric.

Rather than put hope in relocation, the Alumni Board should also realize that these metrics do not reflect the fallout from the wrongful termination settlement that was recently won by three former AMSL professors.  A review of the AveWatch server log makes one wonder if any law school in America does not know that AMSL reversed all of its punitive tenure decisions against the professors.

The academic legal community also knows what Ave Maria Law is, thanks largely to the evidence uncovered in the suit.  The University of Chicago’s Brian Leiter summed it up best by calling the settlement “a suitable rebuke to the nutty Tom Monaghan and former Dean Dobranski, who did his bidding.”

“Nutty”

With over three years of articles, AveWatch had to create a whole category devoted to “nutty“.  Who wants to pay $33K/year to have a diploma from a fourth-tier school with an administration deemed “nutty” by its legal peers (Catholic or otherwise)?

AveWatch asked several observers to comment on what the lawsuit’s findings and settlement mean.  What can be learned from this?:

Charles Rice (Professor Emeritus, Notre Dame Law School; Co-Founder and Gubernator Ejectus, AMSL):

Three causes:

1) A free-standing law school is required to be run by its governing board, with decisions made in the interest of the school. Tom Monaghan subordinated the interests of AMSL, and all those who relied on him and his promises, to  his separate business interests. If he developed a university organically in Florida, AMSL could easily have phased in with it pursuant to the program laid out by Joe Falvey.  We could have ended up with two excellent law schools, one in Florida and one in Ann Arbor.  TSM had no adequate appreciation for the quality and potential of AMSL. When he came up with his fantasy vision of the “Catholic town with university” and insisted that AMSL jump-start it by moving lock, stock and barrel to the suburbs of Immokalee, he destabilized AMSL in his pursuit of that fantasy. With the concurrence of Dobranski and the Board, TSM ran AMSL as a sole proprietorship to serve his own ends.

2) Bernie Dobranski at first tried to restrain Tom Monaghan’s interference with the operation of the school. But when Tom insisted on the instant move of AMSL to jump-start his university, Bernie flipped and became the obedient resident agent of the sole proprietor, Monaghan. Bernie’s actions disintegrated into a pattern of arbitrary treatment and meanness toward those who disagreed, especially faculty. His treatment of Safranek, Puccillo and Lyons is beyond contempt and beyond my power to describe. But Monaghan and the compliant Board members share in the responsibility for it.

3) Most important, the Board, with very few exceptions (most notably Jim Ryan) abjectly failed in its fiduciary duty to be a governing board. They appeared, wrongly, to regard AMSL as “Tom’s law school” because they saw Tom as the money man. The attitude of the Board was one of automatic submission to TSM and his resident agent, Bernie.  The result was a betrayal of the Board’s fiduciary duty to AMSL and its  community. The Board members were honorable, pleasant and obviously competent people. But as a group, the Board was sycophantic toward Tom and Bernie, and essentially worthless. The result was to waste a great opportunity. Serving on that Board was a disgusting experience. On the other hand, in my opinion, if Jim Ryan had been chairman of the Board and Joe Falvey the Dean, AMSL, even with the same Board members, would have succeeded beyond the most optimistic expectations. The problem was essentially one of leadership.

A former Ave Maria professor:

In the end, it could be that the sole purpose of Ave Maria is to serve as a warning to others who think that a legal academic community can or should be used by a wealthy sole proprietor to bolster his other non-profit and for-profit business ventures.  AMSL was a train wreck on the career and future of many bright, hard working, faithful Catholic legal professionals.  The Governors should be ashamed of their docile tolerance of institutional problems.  They failed to heed the warning of St. John Chrysostom who said that “unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong”.

A former Ave Maria Professor:

The Ave Enterprises have lied to, tried to hurt, or attempted to destroy so many people including Charlie Rice, Janet Smith, John Hittinger, as well as Safranek, Pucillo and Lyons and literally hundreds of students. Both St. Thomas and Aristotle help us to know that bad actions may not spring from bad character. However, when actions are regular and flow naturally from people, we recognize that they flow from habits and character. Ave Enterprises exhibit a certain character that is based upon the character of its leaders. Even bad characters though do good things.

However, Ave Maria is an entity that is meant to have a life projecting out for generations. It seeks students, donors, faculty and staff who will entrust their work and their future to Ave Maria and its promise. Whether or not it will fulfill that promise is based upon its character.

All of these people, Rice, Smith, Hittinger, Safranek, Pucillo and Lyons as well as hundreds of harmed careers and destroyed futures for alumni show that the Ave Enterprises are the Catholic Academic Bernard Madoff.

Deborah Gordon (legal team representing Safranke, Pucillo, and Lyons):

This case was truly unique.  First, the arrogance of Monaghan and Dobranski, both during the events themselves and later at deposition was astounding.  Monaghan had a quiet but very determined arrogance, Dobranski was more aggressive.  Both saw things only from their point of view and seemed incapable of realizing they had made many mistakes. In my opinion, both were very thin skinned and could not deal  criticism of any kind.  Neither hesitated to refer to those who disagreed with them as “dissidents”, and did so proudly.While I am used to cynicism and dishonesty in my cases it was particularly galling to see that with defendants who hold themselves out as being devoted to religious principles.  It quickly became obvious that in their minds the ends justified the means… the truth and morality be damned.

I was shocked that a religious school would have on board the likes of Father Orsi.  More evidence that the criteria for employment is not the quality of the individual but how often he says “yes”.  Similarly, the fact that people of the stature, intellect and integrity of Rice and Falvey were disposed of said it all with regard to the kind of institution this was.
The other surprise was how truly hands off the BOG was.

Finally, what was great was our clients.  All were very helpful with the case, totally committed to seeing justice be done and had great senses of humor.

In addition, this was a complete and total victory.  Our team could think of nothing our clients could get at trial they did not obtain with this settlement.  Yes, a trial would have been extremely revealing and would shed more public light on the claims.  But our clients could not have had tenure restored, and their names and records cleared with a trial – we had no way of obtaining injunctive relief.  So, the settlement provided the opportunity to correct an injustice by reversing all of the laughable and illegal wrongs that were done, in addition to the monetary relief.  It was very important to us to have the AMSL Board set the record straight.  I felt the evidence in this case was overwhelming and would not have hesitated to go to trial if I thought the result would have been better.

Every time that Monaghan, Dobranski, and Dean Eugene Milhizer brag that AMSL initially achieved accreditation in “the fastest possible time”, they only heap coals upon themselves… and should be reminded that the school’s fall under their mismanagement was even faster.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 9:32 am and is filed under Law School, lawsuits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.