Florida Coastal School of Law FCSL, Coastal Law Think twice before attending Jacksonville, Florida

Florida Coastal ("Coastal Law") serves two purposes: 1) it provides a legal education to students lacking the LSAT score to go to a public and/or higher-ranked school, and 2) it provides substantial profits to its shareholders and/or parent company.  Considering the above purposes, the following explains why one should think long and hard before attending Coastal Law.

The Legal Profession and Tradition
Unfortunately, there seems to be no other profession in the U.S. that is so focused on tradition for tradition's sake than the legal profession.  In the legal profession prestige MATTERS; the name of your school, your grades, your co-curricular activities, all of these things weigh very heavily in the minds of lawyers (i.e., people who hire law students/graduates).  Among these, school recognition really does matter - attorneys hire law students from prestigious schools because 1) that's how it's always been done, and 2) clients like to see flashy alma maters in the bio of their lawyer.  And so very unfortunately, students from newer/lower-ranked schools like Coastal Law have a VERY hard time finding jobs with salaries that can manage a huge loan debt burden.  In fact, most Coastal Law grads seem to have a hard time finding ANY employment at all, and so a large number are forced to either 1) go to a higher-ranked school for an LLM to legitimize themselves, 2) open their own practice (which is bad for a number of reaons), and/or 3) find a non-legal job (and probably not anything cool that pays well).

Making the Big Bucks
Most people who attend Coastal Law go for one of two (or both) reasons: 1) they are planning to transfer to a better school after their first year because they didn't have the creds to get in after graduation, and/or 2) they are blithely unaware of the realities of the legal profession and think they will automatically be gainfully employed once they have their Juris Doctor, even if it is from Coastal.  Most students, from my experience, think that the LOWEST end of their realistic salary expectations after graduating from Coastal Law are around $60,000.  This is way off.  By probably $20-30k.
You see, no one in Florida (which has ELEVEN law schools) gives a d**n about a Coastal Law J.D.; they are a dime a dozen (after all, Florida Coastal has around 1,200 students...).  The legal market in Florida (and almost everywhere else from what I have read and heard from others) is flooded with lawyers, and a degree from a new, relatively unheard of school carries no clout when looking for a job or negotiating for a salary.  The Career Services Dept. at Coastal stated during their 2008 orientation session that the realistic salary expectation for a Coastal grad is around $30-35k.  How does that salary sound when you owe at least $100k in law school loans?  (as an aside, jobs working with the public defender and state attorney's office are very competitive for Coastal Law grads, and those jobs only pay $40k.)

Grades, Scholarships, and Transferring
The Curve at Coastal Law is about C+/B-, which is about 2.6/7. This means that the vast majority of students' GPA's will be below a 3.0, which, taken a step further, means that MOST students at Coastal Law lose their scholarships after their 1st year.  And once you lose it, you CAN NOT EVER GET IT BACK.
Further, with such a low curve and so many other students at other Tier 3 and 4 law schools in Florida trying to transfer to FSU, UF, and UM, transferring is EXTREMELY difficult, with only about the top 10-15% of each class actually being able to make it out to greener pastures.  If you don't make top grades, transferring is out of the question.  Period.

Conclusion
Think long and hard before going to Coastal Law.  If you are considering going, then you should first reconcile yourself with the fact that looking strictly at the numbers, you will most probably lose your scholarship, rack up over $100k in debt, and start out making $40k (if you are lucky).  On the bright side, the professors are very nice and really do know what they're doing (well educated and most have extensive experience practicing in their respective areas), and the campus is brand new, state-of-the-art, and very nice and scenic.  However, for me, the choice is pretty clear: Coastal Law is not a good career move.