A lawsuit accusing Widener University School of Law of inflating job statistics is facing dismissal nearly seven years after it was filed.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Cathy Waldor recommended in a report made public Friday that the case be dismissed with prejudice for failure to prosecute. The recommendation comes after the sole remaining plaintiff, Gregory Emond, who is pro se, did not appear for an Aug. 27 hearing on an order to show cause on why the case should not be dismissed. Waldor's recommendation is subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton in 14 days after any objectors are allowed to be heard.

The suit against Widener was filed in 2012 as part of a movement accusing law schools of overstating their graduates' success in finding legal employment. Similar suits were filed against DePaul University College of Law, John Marshall Law School, Golden Gate University School of Law, the University of San Francisco School of Law and the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, among others. But law schools generally prevailed in the litigation.

But the movement focused attention on the American Bar Association's role in setting standards for law firms to disclose employment data, prompting the group to require schools to report more detail about the kinds of jobs that their graduates land.

Widener's law school in Wilmington, Delaware, was accused of claiming that 90% of its graduates got jobs within nine months of graduation, without distinguishing between legal jobs and other positions. Lead plaintiff John Harnish, who obtained his law degree from Widener in 2009, claimed he was unable to find a law job and instead worked as a bartender.

But the Widener suit hit a snag in 2015 when U.S. District Judge William Walls denied the plaintiffs' motion for class certification.

Walls said individual questions predominated over common ones because the suit's theory that all graduates suffered corresponding damages ignored the reality that some obtained the type of full-time legal jobs they sought when enrolling at Widener, while other class members may have suffered ascertainable losses as a result of the school's alleged misrepresentation about their future job prospects. Walls also said the typicality requirement for class certification was not met because it was unclear whether all members of the proposed class were exposed to the claimed misrepresentations.

More bad news came for plaintiffs in 2016 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed Walls' ruling.

Then, in February 2018, Waldor granted the motion of the plaintiffs lawyers in the case, the firm of Stone & Magnanini in Berkeley Heights, to withdraw.  Following the departure of their lawyers, five named plaintiffs, including Harnish, told the court they did not intend to find other counsel to proceed with the case.

Emond, the last pro se plaintiff, said on the record in 2017 that he wished to dismiss his case, but never signed a stipulation of dismissal, Waldor said. Emond claimed in the suit that he found employment as a practicing attorney after law school, but the pay was less than he made before enrolling at Widener, and was not enough to pay his student loans.

Emond could not be reached for comment, and his former counsel, David Stone of Stone & Magnanini, said the litigation against Widener and other law schools had benefits, even though he did not prevail.

"I think that our various lawsuits, and publicity relating to those lawsuits, led to adoption of new rules nationally by the ABA and internally by law schools, so that the practice [of inflating employment numbers] is less frequent. It was a fairly widespread practice, particularly among lower-tier law schools that didn't have good placement statistics," Stone said.

Suna Lee of Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker in Florham Park, and Dennis Drasco, of Lum, Drasco & Positan in Roseland, representing Widener, did not respond to requests for comment. A Widener spokeswoman also did not respond to a request for comment.