Expanding the Brand

Don LeDuc Guides Cooley Law School’s Dynamic Growth

by Eric Freedman
April 16, 2010

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School has produced so many graduates who have gone on to become judges, prosecutors, lawmakers and other officials, says political pundit Bill Ballenger, it’s become practically “the farm system” for Michigan government.

In that light, Cooley’s recent move putting its name on the former Oldsmobile Park, the downtown stadium where the Lansing Lugnuts play Class A baseball as a Toronto Blue Jays farm team, is nearly as symbolic as it is a bold marketing move to keep expanding the Cooley brand.

The upstart law school, the brainchild of a conservative Republican politician who served on the Michigan Supreme Court, has made a major impact since its founding in 1972. In particular, its influence on legal education and the vitality of the downtown of Michigan’s capital city can be considered downright radical.

The University of Michigan’s law school may have a grander reputation, Harvard’s has a longer history and Yale’s regularly sends its graduates to Washington to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court justices, but comparative newcomer Cooley now boasts both the nation’s largest law school — move over, Georgetown — and an expanding network of politically placed alumni. Cooley has grown swiftly by growing its Lansing base and adding branch campuses in the state’s largest population centers.

Make no mistake; growing in size and influence is part of the Cooley game plan. And managing the Cooley team for much of this brand expansion has been Don LeDuc, the current dean and president.

Quietly effective
LeDuc, now 68, is a Flint native who graduated from Kalamazoo College and from Wayne State University Law School. Although short in height and more resembling academic than athlete, he knows contact sports — and winning. He played football at K College — in “whatever position I could work my way into, mostly defensive back” — including one undefeated season and two years when the college won its league championship.

His Lansing career began in 1966 as an intern in the attorney general’s office under Democrat Frank J. Kelley. Later he joined the administration of Republican Governor William G. Milliken at the Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice in 1969-1970 and then as administrator of the Office of Criminal Justice Programs in the early 1970s.

He moved to Cooley in 1975 as a professor and served as dean under president and founder Thomas E. Brennan from 1982 until 1987, when “internal issues” led him to step down. He stayed at Cooley as a rank-and-file faculty member, however, and “I was a real teacher for a while.”

When “opportunity lured me back” to the deanship in 1996, he explains, it was a watershed time because the school was developing its weekend program and revamping its curriculum. And it was growing — at that point ranked among the top three or four largest in the country.

When founder Brennan retired in 2002, LeDuc assumed the additional title of president and wrote a strategic plan that positioned the school to move toward its present largest-in-the-nation status. Two principal factors made that possible: Cooley’s pattern of taking in three entering classes a year — with morning, afternoon and night sessions — and its phased-in opening of campuses in Auburn Hills, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids.

The decision to expand seemed logical, given a perceived pent-up demand for legal studies and a willingness to launch programs in locations with large pools of prospective applicants. “Location is still the primary driver of where students go to school,” LeDuc says.

For example, Detroit College of Law’s move from Motown to the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing left only Wayne State and University of Detroit Mercy to accommodate demand in Metro Detroit. Oakland County was the third-most-populous county in the country without a law school, and Cooley found room to locate on the Oakland University campus, then moved to its own campus in the former facilities of a joint Chrysler-UAW meeting and education center.

There was also solid logic to placing a campus in downtown Grand Rapids, the economic and political hub of West Michigan and a part of the state without any law school. Then Ann Arbor offered another opportunity, with people who liked the local lifestyle but couldn’t get into or afford U of M. When Ave Maria Law School, a small Catholic institution founded by Domino Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, moved to Florida, Cooley negotiated for its facilities. It presented a rich “target of opportunity,” LeDuc says.

Lansing remains the linchpin of the burgeoning empire, with more than half (2,033) of its students, while newcomer Ann Arbor is the smallest (150). Enrollment at Auburn Hills (797) and Grand Rapids (680) falls in between.

Recognizing Cooley’s impact on his city and LeDuc’s leadership at Cooley, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero in his 2006 inaugural address recognized LeDuc as a “quietly effective man” who “is a visionary not just for Cooley, but also for downtown Lansing.”

Roots
In one sense, the school’s roots date back a century and a half to 1864, when namesake Thomas M. Cooley was appointed to the state Supreme Court. He was a one-time newspaper editor, University of Michigan law professor and constitutional scholar who sat on the court for 20 years before Democratic President Grover Cleveland named him to the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Given its location so close to the Capitol, the school’s more recent political connections are unsurprising. In part that’s because the resume of founder Brennan, the Republican former chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, at the time also included unsuccessful campaigns for state House and U.S. House.

Former Atty. Gen. Kelley, who taught administrative and constitutional law as an adjunct faculty member for a few years during Cooley’s early days, says, “At the time that Tom Brennan started the law school, there was a need because we had no law schools in central or western Michigan at all. He did fulfill a need.”

Brennan had won a seat on the Supreme Court by defeating incumbent Democratic Justice Otis Smith in 1966. In 1974, he surprised the state by leaving the court to become Cooley’s full-time president. Inside Michigan Politics editor Ballenger says Brennan could have been expected to serve “20 or 30 years or more” on the court.

Brennan did remain politically active, however, losing a 1976 GOP primary for U.S. Senate and running as the 1982 Republican nominee for lieutenant governor with anti-tax crusader Richard Headlee at the top of the ticket. Some pundits speculated the pair would have fared better against U.S. Representative James J. Blanchard, the Democratic nominee, if the ticket had been reversed.

Politically active
Although many lawyers are politically active, regardless of their alma mater, Cooley’s political connections are most visible among its alumni roster of about 14,000 graduates. Some were part-time students who attended the close-at-hand law school while in the legislature or working for the state.

Among those who’ve risen to high elective office are former Gov. John Engler and former House Speaker Paul Hillegonds of Holland. Retiring U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak of Menominee also is among those alumni, as are Sen. Alan Cropsey of DeWitt and several former state representatives.

In addition, more than 40 past and present county prosecutors graduated from Cooley, as did more than 100 circuit, probate and district judges. Court of Appeals Judge Jane Markey has climbed the highest on the alumni judicial ladder, and seven judges teach as adjunct faculty in Lansing and Grand Rapids this term.

Photo by Dave Trumpie

Says Ballenger, “They’re becoming like the farm system for the state judiciary and other political offices,” far more than any other law school in the state. Given Cooley’s sheer size, “it stands to reason by the law of averages that a lot of those people are going to continue on in political office or run for political office or be appointed,” he says.

But political connections, or at least the perception of those connections, can carry the potential for complications. That’s evident in a pending lawsuit in which Lynn Branham, a former tenured professor and ex-associate dean of Cooley’s Grand Rapids campus, claims the school forced her out for opposing the hiring of Judge Markey’s husband — a fellow Cooley alum — as a full-time faculty member. The suit alleges that Branham was the target of retaliation for objecting to nepotism in the hiring of an unqualified instructor, a claim the school strongly disputes. In March, U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker in Grand Rapids rejected Cooley’s request to dismiss the case.

Milliken Republican
If any Milliken a/k/a moderately liberal Republicans remain in Michigan, LeDuc would count himself among them. “I don’t know how many are left,” LeDuc says.

“I liked his politics,” he continues, but “it’s harder to be in the middle.” When the then-governor put LeDuc in charge of distributing federal criminal justice grants, he told Milliken that “most of the money should go to Detroit” although the city had a Democratic mayor, Coleman Young. “I’ll handle the politics,” Milliken replied.

LeDuc, who served on the state Corrections Commission from 1977 to 1984, recalls being in Milliken’s office when prison riots erupted. The governor, he says, “was so cool under fire.”

He describes himself a “government person,” in contrast with Brennan. “Tom was a true politician. He still is.”

As dean and president, LeDuc generally avoids much interaction with lawmakers just down the block. As a private nonprofit institution, Cooley receives no state aid, so he doesn’t need to plead every year for government largesse. He has spoken in front of the State Officers Compensation Commission in support of salary hikes for judges, and he testified when the legislature was considering a proposal to make it easier for inmates who claim they were wrongfully convicted to obtain DNA testing. In 2001, Cooley launched its Innocence Project, in which students and faculty investigate wrongful conviction claims where DNA testing can establish the innocence of wrongly convicted incarcerated individuals.

He also keeps out of the increasingly ideological conflicts among Michigan Supreme Court justices. Sharp personality conflicts on the high court are nothing new, he says, but “they didn’t get the kind of political media play then as now.” He decries what he sees as degeneration of philosophical debate on the court to political and personal debate, adding that he sees all seven current justices as qualified and competent.

Building reputation
In its early days, Cooley was sometimes derided for admitting students who might not or could not get accepted at other schools. Even now LeDuc acknowledges that it’s tougher to compete for students on the basis of reputation than to recruit on the basis of location or cost. Reputation is harder to control than cost — full-time Cooley tuition runs about $29,000 a year, which is slightly less than the MSU rate and far below the $43,000 that U-M charges in-state residents.

Job placement and reputation are linked, LeDuc says, but “a lot of reputation is flat-out ignorance.”

LeDuc and Brennan have railed about “elitism” and a “self-perpetuating caste system” in national law school rankings. Their own annual Judging the Law Schools draws on American Bar Association data and criteria such as minority enrollment, LSAT scores, student-faculty ratio, undergraduate GPAs, enrollment numbers, tuition, library data and number of applicants to place Cooley 12th in the country in 2008, six spots below U of M.

Other ratings are less kind. Cooley doesn’t make the top-100 list of Top Law Schools, a site that consolidates other rankings. It places Cooley (and University of Detroit Mercy) in the fourth of four tiers among U.S. law schools; Wayne State and Michigan State are in the third tier, while U-M ranks 9th nationally.

Meanwhile, the proportion of Cooley grads passing the Michigan bar exam the first time is comparable to that of its primary in-state competitors, although there is some fluctuation. Last July, for example, Cooley’s success rate was 85 percent, the same as University of Detroit Mercy and a few points below Wayne State, according to Board of Law Examiner figures. In February 2009, Cooley’s 86 percent topped MSU and Wayne State.

U of M’s prestige and high profile have long lured a large proportion of out-of-state applicants willing to pay its high tuition. Cooley also recruits from beyond Michigan’s borders — although the number of in-state applicants was 17 percent higher in March 2010 than in March 2009. Its big drawing card is the ease of getting in.

LeDuc describes it as an “access” law school, meaning it accepts all applicants who meet the eligibility criteria. Once they’re in, however, there’s no guarantee they’ll finish, and Cooley doesn’t bend its academic standards.

In March, for example, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out a lawsuit against Cooley by former student Nahzy Buck, who had been dismissed twice from the school for poor academic performance, first in 2001 after three terms and again in March 2006, when she was close to graduation. Buck claimed Cooley failed to accommodate her learning disabilities. After losing an initial round of litigation in state court, she filed a federal suit accusing Cooley of violating Michigan and federal disabilities rights laws. U.S. District Judge Janet Neff in Grand Rapids threw out the case, and the appeals court agreed.

Job market
Tough job market or not, the flow of would-be lawyers is heavier and heavier. Applications for its September class are 9 percent higher than at the same time last year, a significantly higher growth rate than national figures.

LeDuc says the school’s strong emphasis on practical skills and career preparation is paying off, and its large externship program and growing alumni network help grads find jobs. For example, many alumni now work as prosecutors and assistant prosecutors in counties large and small — civil litigation and hiring by large firms is down, “but there’s no less crime. We’ll always need prosecutors,” he observes.

Tom Robertson, executive secretary of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, says his members “have filled a lot of jobs with Cooley graduates, and they’re doing well and are highly respected.”

Photo by Dave Trumpie

But a cautionary note is in order, given the state’s struggling economy and the tightening of belts of budget-strapped counties. Hiring in prosecutors’ offices has been declining for the past eight years, and the staff turnover rate is down as well, Robertson says. “I used to have a half-dozen jobs a month in my newsletter. Now I’m lucky to have one. It’s really a tough market for everyone getting out of law school.”

Charles Toy, Cooley’s associate dean and president of the State Bar of Michigan, sounds more optimistic.

Asked whether law schools in the state are churning out too many grads, he replies, “Too many attorneys? I don’t believe that.” And he cites U.S. Department of Education reports that say a lawyer shortage is developing and will continue as Baby Boomers retire. As for Cooley’s role in the growth in the pool of lawyers, Toy says its actual enrollment has increased by only 1 percent or less annually, “so we’re not flooding the market. There are still many underserved populations.”

And he says more new grads are considering the practice of public interest law, including tenant resource centers, elder law and defense of indigent criminals.

Kelley says the state’s law schools collectively may be producing too many lawyers, but “that’s a separate argument. The fact is Cooley has produced and given the opportunity to hundreds of men and women to become lawyers who otherwise would not have the opportunity.”

Economic development
Cooley has been leaving a widening footprint in downtown Lansing as well, where it owns five buildings — one of them housing the Thomas E. Brennan Library, newly expanded to become the second-largest law school library (in size) in the nation — starting with its original quarters in the 1924 Masonic Temple building on Capitol Avenue.

The influx of Cooley students in downtown has also fueled the city’s economic development efforts and brought new life to the largely 9-to-5 commercial area. Just as important, it’s sparked new residential construction and redevelopment projects that are key to the growth of a downtown and close-in urban population seeking basic and higher levels of goods, services and entertainment.

Earlier this year, it negotiated the 11-year, $1.485 million deal with the city for naming rights to Oldsmobile Park. The arrangement sparked some debate, but LeDuc defends it as both a “great marketing opportunity” and “an element of corporate citizenship.” Mayor and would-be Gov. Bernero described the deal as “a grand slam home run for the city of Lansing, the Lugnuts and Cooley Law School.”

It’s not the only time Cooley’s marketing efforts have drawn criticism. Its early billboard campaign sparked complaints that it “cheapened things” but proved effective in attracting Michigan applicants. “The ballpark,” LeDuc continues, “is a big billboard with four-side visibility.”

Looking ahead
Since he became president, LeDuc no longer teaches administrative law and says he misses the classroom, misses preparation of lectures “a little” and doesn’t miss grading at all. But now he finds himself reading up on insurance law because Cooley this year partnered with Olivet College on a new master’s in insurance law program.

“When you’re a lawyer, you’re always scratching below the surface,” he explains. And that’s a contrast with his leisure reading, as he works his way through the Great Books — Charles Dickens is his favorite — and picks up some poetry collections because he can “read in short bursts.”

The new campuses have infused the faculty with new blood, he says, and looking 10 years down the road, he predicts that Cooley will still be sticking to its fundamental emphasis on practice and ethics and continue to recruit practitioners to teach. There are no short-term plans for a fifth campus, although Kalamazoo is a potential site, and the next Cooley location could be out of the state.

As for LeDuc’s own future, nothing appears set. Although Toy says the board of trustees is working on a transition plan, LeDuc appears happy managing one of the most active brands in legal education.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Eric Freedman is associate professor of journalism at Michigan State University and director of Capital News Service. He and Dome columnist Stephen A. Jones are editors of African Americans in Congress: A Documentary History (Congressional Quarterly Press).