The Legal Beat

Can You Get Away With Bribing Your Way Into Law School?
Posted on Friday March 15, 2019

(Photo via Getty Images)

Most of the things people do to influence the admissions decisions are legal, even if they are distasteful. Whereas [the allegations in the latest scandal are] a felony. What people are used to is some level of the shenanigans that happens all the time. I’m talking about things like big donations to schools in hopes of influencing the outcome.

But no, I haven’t heard of felony-level stuff where parents are bribing people at a law school. It could be happening, but I’m not aware of it. I think the way the fraud operated in this particular case wouldn’t really work at the law school level because what they did is exploit this whole phenomenon of college sports and the power that coaches have at these schools. There’s really no equivalent on the law school side.

— Anna Ivey, former admissions dean at the University of Chicago Law School who now works as a college, law school and MBA program admissions consultant, commenting on the college admissions scandal that brought down Willkie Farr co-chair Gordan Caplan, and whether anything like that could ever happen at the law school level.

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

ADDITIONAL STORIES: