© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Janet Elliott
(Aug. 18) – Dallas criminal defense lawyer Kristin Brown’s final semester at Texas Wesleyan School of Law coincided with plans by Texas A&M University to acquire the Fort Worth law school.
That business deal was of little concern as Brown planned for her future. She sat for the bar exam, applied for a master of laws program and completed documenting her 1,300 hours of pro bono work. Brown’s alma mater became the Texas A&M University School of Law in August 2013.
Two years later Brown is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Aggie law school and Texas Wesleyan University. The 32 plaintiffs are former Wesleyan students are seeking diplomas naming them as Texas A&M graduates. The case, filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas, seeks certification of a class of approximately 3,000 individuals and damages for “irrational discrimination” that could exceed $5 million.
“They sell their school on our successes yet they refuse to acknowledge us as alumni of their school,” says Brown. “And you cannot have your cake and eat it too.”
The graduates have lost their ability to easily show potential employers and clients that they graduated from an accredited law school because Texas Wesleyan is no longer easily located on many lists of accredited law schools. For instance, the Law School Admission Council and the American Bar Association both use drop-down menus on online forms that no longer list Texas Wesleyan, according to the lawsuit.
The case was filed Aug. 11 by Warren Norred, who, like Brown, came to law as a second career and attended Texas Wesleyan. Norred, an Arlington business attorney, has led an unsuccessful two-year effort to resolve the dispute through petitions to the Texas A&M law school and board of regents and the American Bar Association.
“TAMU could have started its own law school, but having chosen to purchase one and backdate its accreditation to 1994, capitalizing on the bar results, hours of pro bono service and other accomplishments of its pre-acquisition graduates, TAMU School of Law cannot now treat pre- and post-acquisition graduates differently,” the lawsuit states.
In a written statement, Karan Watson, provost and executive vice president of Texas A&M University, said the university has worked to welcome alumni of the Wesleyan law school into the Aggie family.
“We have strived to ensure the continuity of networking, professional development, mentoring and leadership opportunities at the law school,” says Watson. “But there are limits on our ability to accommodate some of their requests.
“We regret that a small group of alumni have decided to file suit, but know that we have been fair in our dealings with the Texas Wesleyan law school alumni.
An April 2014 letter from Watson to Wesleyan alumni stated that because Texas Wesleyan University remains in existence, it would be able to continue to attest to the completion of degrees from its former law school. Watson said Texas A&M’s “privilege to confer law degrees began at the moment of our substantive change (acquisition) and not before.”
The lawsuit is about more than the hassle of having to explain the law school sale to those who question her credentials, says Brown. It’s also about a sense of loss.
“As part of the last graduating class, it was important to us to be able to come back to our school three months after graduation and still have it be our school. That wasn’t the case at all,” says Brown.
“Our cards no longer worked. Everything that was there when we were there had changed and we were told we were not part of that.”
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