College of Legal Arts (COLA) in Portland Oregon - Sold me a Bill of Goods
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College of legal arts (cola) - portland, or
College of Legal Arts in Portland, Oregon assured me that they had job placement and internships for students enrolled in their paralegal program. Something that they do not have. There was no job placement assistance and no internshps. The only "internships" they offered were volunteer opportunities with their substandard professors (out of 12 instructors - only two are decent lawyers; majority of the instructors that teach at COLA, teach because they can't make money at their own practices). The Admissions Director and Director of the Paralegal Department said that most of their students get paralegal jobs when they graduate. This is untrue, especially in the Portland area. Majority of their students that do get "legal" jobs actually get file clerk positions. A position one could easily obtain without going through the course at all. Unfortunately, you usually need to get to know someone to get one of these law firms. Why would you want to pay $10K for a paralegal certificate when you're only going to file anyway? The truth is that you could get those jobs without ever going to college. Ask your local temp agency. They have no job placement assistance at all. That is another downright lie the school says to get you to sign up for their program.in fact, the school has you do a research project about trade schools and misrepresentation, your first term to scare you into not suing them later.
The school also discourages students to get "internships" until the third semester. Why is that? Despite your other formal education, you will probably not get a paralegal job; you will probably get a lifetime job of filing. And you don't need an paralegal certificate to do that.
I did do an internship for the estate planning professor working there and my internship consisted of shuttling her around (her car's engine blew up) to Fred Meyer's, the library, and taking her food (she cried about her diabetes and no did not have food in her cabinets), and primarily filing her extremely disorganized case load. She had piles and piles of disorganized client files. I've never seen so many pages of clients in such disarray. Not only did she call me an average of 2 - 3 times per day (sometimes 11) she told the Director of Paralegal Studies I was working for her. Lol Even slaves had food, clothing, and shelter.
Almost a year after I completed my so-called internship, when she finally did have legitimate work to do, which I would have been happy to complete for her. She insisted I had to pick it up at her house. I told her I couldn't afford the gas money. It was 100 miles round trip to my house and back; but, she did offer to buy me dinner. I find this appalling. She can't offer me gas money, but she'll offer me dinner? Isn't that funny considering she's a lesbian?
Things that make you go hmmm... Because I wouldn't pick it up, I told her she could dictate it via the phone or email it to me (it was a Durable Power of Attorney) and I refused to go to dinner with her she said she would not give me a good reference (she was refering to my internship). This was 9 months after the internship was finished because she never had that much work coming in her office to begin with. This is what you get for trying to be nice. Should an internship consist of transporting your boss around and cleaning their at-home office?
You should also be aware that professors at COLA are allowed to conduct classes anyway they choose. The instructors often give inflated grades to those they like. There is no formal lesson plan for the instructors. They do whatever they choose. One professor makes you rewrite 10 projects 10 times each. It's a power play and she's entitled. She refused to give me a grade although I completed all the assignments and the class. She conveniently lost my homework? Why? Because she was having me switch sentences back and forth to the same thing and I confronted her on it. COLA does not want students that are confrontational to professors that are wrong. Then again, what do expect? The Director married a former student. There are high ethical standards at COLA. Lol
These are just a few of the fine examples of what a wonderful educational institution COLA is... Their paralegal certificate isn't worth toilet paper.
I advise anyone seeking a certificate there to take PCC's program. It may be longer, but it's more credible to take a paralegal program at an accredited school than any of these shady trade schools. Cola... Just another shady trade school with incompetent attorneys that can't function as attorneys in the real world.
I would like to hear from other students affilated with this school that feel that they were ripped off.
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