After placing NYU Law on the kill list a couple of weeks ago, we got down to some serious work. As in, what school in Florida should we take out? The eleven Florida law schools we know about (excluding online schools—so far) include:
- Barry University School of Law
- Florida A&M University College of Law
- Florida Coastal School of Law
- Florida International University College of Law
- Florida State University College of Law
- University of Florida Levin College of Law
- Shepard Broad Law Center at Nova Southeastern University
- St. Thomas University School of Law
- Stetson University College of Law
- University of Miami School of Law
- Ave Maria School of Law
It was a close call for our experts, who wrangled over public vs. private schools, law school employment stats, and which school had the worst mascot. In the end, we added the Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law at Barry University to the law school kill list. Why? A few reasons:
1Bucky the Parrot. Bucky the Parrot is the mascot of Barry University and Barry Law. While slightly better than Sebastian the Ibis at Miami and “John B” Hatter at Stetson, having a parrot as a mascot just doesn’t cut it, especially for a law school already on the edge of a kill list. We don’t need no parrots.
2Cost/Location. Two law schools and Disney World in a town the size of Orlando? It came down to supporting the public option, which is A&M. For in-state folks, A&M will set you back about $135,000, while Barry tops out at over $210,000, and most of its grads end up practicing in Florida anyway. No brainer. But that doesn’t mean we won’t come back to you later, A&M.
3Jobs. Basically, any school with less than a 50 percent placement rate for its grads gets the attention of our law school death panel. And that’s nearly half of all the Florida schools. Sure, Barry is better—according to the Law School Transparency Clearinghouse— at job placement than it’s cross-town rival FLorida A&M, and also better than Florida Coastal, Nova, and Ave Maria. But it’s not a big enough gap to make up for the other critical factors, especially the mascot question.
4Who? Honestly, when the death panel exclaims “Who” when we mention a law school, it’s not a good sign. If we haven’t heard of it for at least some reason, why keep it around? Sure, Shaq graduated from Barry University with a PhD in education. But not law. And while we like the ring of Barry Law, it’s just not enough to keep it alive (yes, fear us, Duncan School of Law).
Sorry, Bucky Barry, you need to close. At least we’ll be happy to save some seats for Barry Law professors and administrators at the next document review gig.