MA non-ABA school. Not every lawyer wants to join a law firm, become a partner, and earn a big paycheck while working a zillion hours a week. The sort of work that Scott Brown did, real estate law out of his garage, doesn't require a Haaaaah-vid degree. Getting someone bailed out of night court doesn't require that sheepskin from Yale. Working legal aid for the poor, you don't need to be worrying about paying back zillions in loans if you get an affordable degree. You can follow your altruistic heart, because you were able to pay the bills while you were attending.
The kids from the MA non-ABA "poor school" acquit themselves very well in the moot court contests the law schools hold, and this is especially noteworthy considering a lot of the contestants worked full time jobs and were night students. http://mslaw.edu/332/ One year several years back they wiped the floor w/Harvard--it was in all the papers. It's not a fly-by-night joint, either, it's been around for a quarter century already.
Some people just want to have enough legal knowledge to do their thing in support of a business they are already running. Some want to practice "petit law" and provide basic services like wills or estate planning at reasonable prices in a community. At the non-ABA school in MA, most of the profs graduated from Harvard, or Michigan... and they have a TV show on cable that discusses issues in a high quality fashion.
For a "predatory institution" (and I don't think they are that) most of their grads find work pretty quick, they have a decent internship program (paid) for the kids who want to go that way at local law firms and in the courts, and they're very affordable. Also, they have a higher rate of passing the bar than some of the "traditional" law schools.
I dunno--I think there's a little snobbery happening in some (not all, but some) instances. I know not all law schools are like this but the one in MA has a decent track record. I know a few guys who went there and they loved the place, loved the small class size, loved the individual attention, loved the fact that the profs didn't dick around and taught them quite rigorously what they needed to know and how to pass the bar, and they are very loyal to the place. They're also making decent money since they got out of the place and they passed the bar on the first try. The school does partner with a college up in NH and provide a combined degree to full time college aged students as well as run the night program for working adults.
I think it depends on what you want to get out of the school--tuition that's a third of the cost of most schools in the state is most definitely more affordable, so they aren't ripping people off on that score.
I don't think most people who go there have a vision of working with Ally McBeal in Boston or at Lockhart Gardner in a high rise in Chicago--they have much simpler, more pedestrian goals. Someone needs to do that work, too.
I wouldn't get a dog grooming degree from University of Phoenix--they overcharge most onerously, and I would discourage anyone from going there. I don't think the non-ABA school in MA is in the same category, though.
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