Now You Can Earn Your Legal Degree at Government Expense

An educational service agreement is not a contract, but is an ordering agreement under which the Government may order educational services. Educational service agreements provide for ordering educational services when the Government pays normal tuition and fees for educational services provided to a student by the institution under its normal schedule of tuition and fees applicable to all students generally, and enrollment is at the institution under the institution's normal rules and in courses and curricula which the institution offers to all students meeting admission requirements.

Until recently, DFARS (DoD FAR Supplement) contained a prohibition under which educational service agreements could not be used for tuition or other expenses for training in any legal profession with the exception of detailing commissioned officers to law schools. That prohibition was lifted last week (see: Class Deviation - Educational Service Agreements for Training in the Legal Profession). A second prohibition against using educational service agreements for special courses or special fees for Government students still exists.

Although technically not a contract, an educational service agreement certainly has the look and feel of a contract with Schedule Provisions and General Provisions, replete with many of the same FAR and DFARS clauses one would find in a DoD contract.

DFARS requires that the Government must establish procedures to review each educational service agreement at least once each year in order to incorporate changes to reflect requirements of any statute. If the educational institution does not agree to any required changes, the Government must termination the agreement.

We don't know why DoD lifted the prohibition against legal education unless it is expecting to need a new crop of attorneys soon.