A federal whistleblower lawsuit filed four years ago against InfiLaw, Florida Coastal School of Law, two other law schools owned by InfiLaw and Barbri, a national Bar exam preparation service, was dismissed Monday by U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard in Jacksonville.
The whistleblowers, two former students at employees of InfiLaw’s Arizona Summit Law School in Phoenix, alleged that from 2010 to 2015, their alma mater and employer, along with Florida Coastal and Charlotte School of Law in North Carolina, knowingly violated numerous federal laws, including the federal False Claims Act in connection with the law schools’ receipt of funds from federal student loan programs.
They also alleged the three law schools misrepresented their admission statistics to the American Bar Association and also paid certain students to postpone taking the Bar exam when the law schools determined the students had little chance of passing it.
The whistleblowers further alleged that InfiLaw made a deal with Barbri to allow the law schools to offer Barbri’s Bar exam preparation materials to students.
The whistleblowers said Barbri agreed to refund directly to the law schools advance payments made by students after the law schools began offering the preparation materials and program as their own.
The dismissal order states that the whistleblowers failed to provide sufficient evidence of their claims against InfiLaw, the law schools and Barbri.
In granting the motion by the defendants to dismiss the lawsuit, Howard directed the clerk of the court to terminate all pending motions and close the file.
Of the three law schools, only Florida Coastal remains in operation.
Charlotte School of Law closed in August 2018 and Arizona Summit reached an agreement with the ABA to close at the end of the spring 2020 semester.