ยป Complaints About Compliance with ABA Standards

As an ABA-accredited law school, the Chapman University Fowler School of Law is subject to the ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools.

Any student at the law school who wishes to bring a formal complaint to the administration of the law school of a significant problem that directly implicates the school’s program of legal education and its compliance with the ABA Standards should do the following:

  1. Submit the complaint in writing to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs or the Associate Dean of Student Affairs. The signed, dated statement may be delivered as a hard copy or scanned and delivered via email.
  2. The writing should describe in detail the behavior, program, process, or other matter that is the subject of the complaint, and should explain how the matter implicates the law school’s program of legal education and its compliance with a specific, identified ABA Standard(s).
  3. The writing must provide the name, official law school e-mail address, phone number, and street address of the complaining student, for further communication about the complaint.
  4. The administrator to whom the complaint is submitted will acknowledge the complaint within ten (10) business days of receipt of the written complaint.  Acknowledgment may be made by e-mail, U.S. mail, or by personal delivery, at the option of the administrator.
  5. Within three weeks of acknowledgment of the complaint, the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs or the Associate Dean for Student Affairs, or their designee, shall either meet with the complaining student, or respond to the substance of the complaint in writing.  In this meeting or in this writing, the student should either receive a substantive response to the complaint, or information about what steps are being taken by the law school to address the complaint or further investigate the complaint.  If further investigation is needed, when the investigation is completed, the student shall be provided either a substantive response to the complaint or information about what steps are being taken by the law school to address the complaint within three weeks after completion of the investigation.
  6. Appeals regarding decisions on complaints may be taken to the Dean of the law school. Any decision made on appeal by the Dean shall be final.
  7. A copy of the complaint and a summary of the process and resolution of the complaint shall be kept in the office of the Associate Dean for Student Affairs until the subsequent re-accreditation review by the ABA. Such reviews occur every seven years.
  8. The law school shall not in any way retaliate against an individual who makes a complaint under this section, nor permit any faculty member, administrator, employee or student to do so.
  9. This policy is not applicable to situations where another policy applies, including, but not limited to, sexual harassment, Honor Code violations, and violations of the University Student Conduct Code.