FULLERTON – Western State University College of Law will not lose its American Bar Association approval this week as threatened after an ABA committee withdrew that recommendation Sunday.

The reversal came in the wake of heavy lobbying by the school at the ABA's annual meeting in San Antonio over the weekend and a federal judge's preliminary injunction Friday.

"I don't think it's over, but we haven't talked about what's next," said Don Daucher, WSU's attorney, who has been among 10 people lobbying at the meeting since Friday to persuade ABA officials to maintain the Fullerton school's accreditation.

ABA accreditation means a law school can attract higher-caliber students and that they can sit for the bar exam in any state.

Orange County's oldest law school won provisional approval from the ABA in 1998. In 2003, the ABA's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar recommended that the college lose its status due to low test scores and a high dropout rate.

The college appealed, and the issue was to have been decided this week by the full ABA House of Delegates. Instead on Sunday, the education committee withdrew its recommendation and the item was pulled from the agenda.

ABA spokeswoman Nancy Slonim confirmed late Sunday that the question had been pulled and the recommendation withdrawn, but she was unable to say whether the attempt to rescind the college's accreditation is dead.

"I think we'll have to wait and see how things come out with the judge," Slonim said.

The college sued in U.S. District Court seeking a temporary injunction to prevent the ABA from taking action this week. On Friday, Judge Gary Taylor issued a temporary stay, saying the ABA could vote this week but any results would not become official until he considered the matter more fully.

The college has argued that the ABA is biased against for-profit law schools, ignored evidence that test scores and pass rates were improving under new management, and disregarded its own rules.