A Florida Coastal School of Law student is suing the school, alleging that the school breached its contract and negligently misrepresented requirements for education and graduation.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of a plaintiff identified as “Jane Doe,” seeks more than $500,000 in damages.

Jane Doe v. Florida Coastal School of Law Inc. and Infilaw Corporation

Jane Doe enrolled in the law school in January 2016, having chosen the school in part because, as the court filing states, “she knew she would not be pressured to practice traditional law or be obligated to sit for the Florida bar examination upon graduation.”

She was on track to graduate in December 2018. She alleges that halfway through her time at the school, it changed its passing and graduation requirements; that she was forced to enroll in a Bar examination preparation course; and that Florida Coastal repeatedly changed the passing requirements for the course between semesters.

Originally, a 60% score was required to pass the bar exam prep course. This was then changed to 50%, but grades above the 50% percent threshold would not be determined by the number of questions answered correctly, but rather based on a curve relative to the scores of other students in the same class.

Thus, even within the same class, the school did not apply grading rules consistently, with some students graded on a curve while others were graded and failed based on the number of questions answered correctly.

Suit Alleges Law School’s Attempt to Inflate Florida Bar Exam Passing Rate

Jane Doe alleges that the law school’s imposition of the Bar exam preparation course and its subsequent change in passing scores, were in response to the American Bar Association finding that Florida Coastal was not in compliance with its admission standards.

The compliance plan the school developed to meet ABA standards was intended to “weed out students” to prevent them from graduating and make them ineligible to sit for the Florida Bar exam. The lawsuit charges that was an effort to artificially inflate the school’s Bar exam passage rate and avoid possible sanctions that imposed by the ABA.

Read more about this lawsuit here.