Thomas Cooley Law School is fighting back against scam bloggers and a law firm that was investigating a possible class-action lawsuit against the school.
The Lansing, Mich.-based school filed two lawsuits on July 14. The first contends that a New York law firm, Kurzon Strauss LLP, posted false statements on websites in an effort to “incite” readers and to “troll” for plaintiffs in a possible class-action lawsuit.
The second lawsuit is against four anonymous scam bloggers who allegedly defamed the school on several websites over the last few months.
“We carefully deliberated over whether to file these lawsuits,” said James Thelen, Cooley’s associate dean for legal affairs and general counsel. “We are not just suing anyone who says something mean about Cooley. These defendants crossed the line both legally and ethically, smearing our reputation with blatantly false and often vulgar statements.”
Thelen said the anonymous bloggers, at least one of whom is a Cooley graduate, made “outlandish” claims about the school’s loan default rate, employment and salary data, and actions by its administrators.
In one posting, an anonymous blogger claimed that Cooley was under investigation by the Federal government for loan fraud, and that Cooley administrators are secretly employed as bankers who are engaged in the fraudulent sale of student loans.
Kurzon Strauss posted online that Cooley graduates defaulted on their loans at a 41 percent rate and that the school was misreporting its default rate.
Thelen said the allegations are “absurd.” Cooley’s last official default rate, which is calculated by the federal government, was 2.2 percent.
Kurzon Strauss posted ads on Craigslist in New York and Detroit announcing that they were investigating a number of law schools for “purportedly manipulating their post-graduate employment data,” lawyers for Cooley said in court papers.
Attorney David Anziska, one of the two Kurzon Strauss attorneys named in the lawsuit, told the Wall Street Journal that he plans to countersue.
“What we did was clearly not defamation, and they know it,” Anziska told the WSJ Law Blog. “This is really just a naked attempt to intimidate us, and we won’t be intimidated.”
The National Jurist attempted to reach Anziska the day after the Wall Street Journal story appeared but his cell number is disconnected, his email address that appeared in the ads is inactive and he is not listed in Kurzon Strauss’ phone directory.
Thelen said Cooley contacted Kurzon Strauss about false allegations in June and the firm agreed to amend its postings. But then a few weeks later, Anziska circulated a purported class action complaint that made similar factual assertions via Facebook to Cooley graduates.
Thelen said Cooley is aware of the ongoing public discussion about law school employment data and hopes this lawsuit will help the discussion.
“The discussion has largely been carried forward by the scam bloggers and others,” Thelen said. “We want to inject some fact and some reasoned attempt at analysis rather than just the scam bloggers anger at not being employed. The anonymity clouds their view as to appropriate civil discourse. We hope this lawsuit will bring some civility back to the discussion.”
