Disruption to Disaster: The Case Study of For-Profit Legal Education in Riaz Tejani’s Law Mart

Abstract

This book review examines Law Mart and its detailed explanation of the reaction of for-profit legal education to the “law school crisis” of 2012-16. The author Tejani worked at Arizona Summit Law School, one of three schools owned and operated by Infilaw Corporation on a for-profit basis, and he documents the way management disregarded faculty governance and rammed through curricular reform to forestall collapse of the school during and after the law school crisis.

While his lessons may be based on his experiences in for-profit legal education, they apply more broadly to all of legal academia particularly in the current era of innovation and reform. By examining the Arizona Summit situation, Tejani makes clear that the ABA failed in their mission of oversight in the earlier era of for-profit innovation in education, and it is just as clear today that their regulatory approach must change or they risk making the same mistakes with the same disastrous consequences in our new era of innovation.

Keywords: Legal Education, Legal Education Accreditation, ABA accreditation, for-profit legal education, book review, Infilaw