NEW YORK, Oct 14 (Reuters) - New York Law School is seeking to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of misleading students about their post-graduation employment prospects, calling the plaintiffs' claims a baseless attempt to vilify the entire law school industry.

The law school was hit in August with a putative class-action suit in New York state court filed by three former students, asking for as much as $200 million in tuition refunds on behalf of all recent graduates, and an order forcing it to be more transparent in how it reports post-graduate employment and salary information.

In a motion to dismiss the complaint filed Thursday, the law school said the plaintiffs relied on "broad generalities" instead of concrete facts to back up their claims that the school massaged its post-graduation statistics to lure prospective students.

"The allegations are not only baseless, but also belied by the plaintiffs' own complaint, which demonstrates this case has nothing to do with New York Law School and everything to do with a crusade against the entire law school industry," Michael Volpe, an attorney with Venable representing the school, said in a statement.

The school, which is located in lower Manhattan and has no affiliation with New York University School of Law, argued that it is in full compliance with American Bar Association procedures for reporting post-graduation employment data. If plaintiffs have a problem with that, the school argued in its motion, they should target the ABA.

"These attacks on the ABA rules are wholly insufficient to state claims for the three individual plaintiffs against NYLS," the motion stated.

TARGETING 15 LAW SCHOOLS

Jesse Strauss, an attorney with Strauss Law representing the plaintiffs, said the school failed to address the plaintiffs' primary allegations in its motion.

"The fact remains that when our clients paid the annual tuition of over $40,000 to attend New York Law School, they did so based on New York Law School's misleading representation that they had an over 90 percent chance of getting a job, and that those jobs paid certain salaries," Strauss said. "That representation is demonstrably false."

Strauss is helping to represent plaintiffs suing Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, over similar claims. He and co-counsel David Anziska recently announced they were planning to file class-action lawsuits against 15 additional schools in seven states over their reporting of post-graduation employment rates.

Congress has also turned its scrutiny on law schools' career statistics. In a letter sent Thursday, Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and California Senator Barbara Boxer, a Democrat, asked the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Education for a report focusing on the "confluence of growing enrollments, steadily increasing tuition rates and allegedly sluggish job placement" at American law schools.

The case is Gomez-Jimenez et al v. New York Law School, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, index no. 652226/2011.

For the plaintiffs: David Anziska of the Law Offices of David Anziska and Jesse Strauss of Strauss Law.

For NYLS: Michael Volpe, Edmund O'Toole, Michael Hartmere and Julia Davis of Venable.

(Reporting by Jessica Dye)

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