Arizona Summit Law school, a troubled for-profit institution owned by the InfiLaw System, has been placed on probation by its accrediting body, the American Bar Association, the New York Times reported today. The association’s move was announced on Monday and followed Arizona Summit’s affiliation with Bethune-Cookman University, a nonprofit historically black college in Daytona Beach, Fla. Arizona Summit Law in Phoenix is the second school owned by InfiLaw to be placed on probation for failing to meet A.B.A. accreditation standards. Sterling Partners, a private equity firm in Chicago and Baltimore, is an investor. The first, Charlotte School of Law in Charlotte, N.C., lost its eligibility for federal student aid in January as a result of the probation. Its enrollment has declined sharply, and the school has said it is trying to restart federal aid and is exploring affiliation with a nonprofit college in a Northeastern state. At Arizona Summit, the bar association found that admissions practices, academic programs, and graduation and bar exam passage rates were below par.
