Another "feasibility study" has alleged the need for a new law school, this time in El Paso, Texas. And the U of Texas at El Paso calls itself the perfect home for this would-be über-toilet.
The state's legislative body commissioned the so-called study from Kennedy & Company Education Strategies, a firm in Virginia that offers various consulting services to universities. On its Web site, we read that its "feasibility studies can help serve as an advocacy document to Boards of Trustees or funding authorities to provide accurate forecasts for the investment needed to support high-quality programming in new fields". Or to legislatures that want "advocacy"—propaganda—rather than sound, independent analysis.
According to the "study", this law school would need ten years to become financially self-sustaining. It would require an infusion of $20 million in capital. That does not include the cost of constructing a building needed on account of "limited campus space and accreditation requirements"—supposedly $60–110 million more. And we are expected to believe that an über-toilet in desolate Hell Paso with a maximum of 100 students per class would generate enough profit to pay back a nine-figure outlay, or that it would serve the public well enough to justify an unrecovered expenditure of that size.
Let's hope that sane voices will prevail in the Lone Star State. Old Guy, however, isn't betting on it.
There are already 10 law schools in Texas, the idea of opening another, bringing the total to 11 law schools in one state strikes me as insane. Yes, I know TX is a big state, but its legal needs could easily be met by 1-2 law schools, perhaps with a large class size. Again, at the risk of repeating myself, the new Presidential Administration appears intent on cost-cutting, specifically on cutting government spending across the board, and I think the government-backed student loan program has to be a part of those cuts. To be clear, I am not trying to be political. Both major political parties are guilty of creating a bloated higher education system that leads to far too many people getting expensive degrees from colleges, law schools, and other graduate programs, degrees that are often worthless. Conservative, Liberal, and Moderate politicians have all contributed to this growing problem. It is my hope that political leaders of all backgrounds and parties can work together to fix this problem. Something needs to change, or the US risks ruinous inflation.
ReplyDeleteNot a single law school in Texas is élite. The Univershitty of Texas has admitted people with LSAT scores around 127. Most law schools in Texas are über-toilets. One or two law schools for the whole damn state would be plenty.
DeleteOld Guy - U Texas Austin has somehow convinced everyone that its accounting program is in the top 10 nationally. Do you believe this?
DeleteI don't know much about accounting programs. Time was when accounting was taught in community colleges, not in universities. It is not an academic subject. Harvard and Yale used to have only one course on accounting, and it was open only to seniors.
DeleteMaybe U Texas Austin does indeed have a good program in accounting. I wouldn't know.
You know, this reminds me of the time Indiana Tech commissioned a feasibility study …
ReplyDeleteExactly the same type of bullshit "feasibility study" was done to justify setting up a law school at Indiana Tech. The joke of a law school was gone in four years.
DeleteI wonder for their law school building they will put expensive paintings in the corridors like Indiana Tech did?
ReplyDeleteIndiana Tech gloated, before it had opened, of being one of the two law schools in the US with a curated art collection. Enough art to need a curator? Something was badly wrong with someone’s sense of priorities.
DeleteProbably Indiana Tech sold the
Deletepaintings at a garage sale as soon the law school closed
Maybe the "art" was produced by one of Indiana Tech’s worthy profe$$ors using a paint-by-numbers kit.
DeleteI think El Paso should save money on a law school building and have night law classes at the local YMCA. Probably the first graduating class would have a higher bar passage rate than Indiana Tech.
ReplyDeleteImagine $100 million on a building for a damn law school. If a hundred people a year went through it, that would be $25k each for a 40-year life expectancy, just for construction.
DeleteOf course, they would not be in it for two years before they started bitching about the shabbiness of the facilities.
If they open a law school in El Paso the literature for trying to attract students on their website will be interesting. They will play the diversity and inclusion card for traditionally underrepresented groups. Then those same unrepresented groups will be unemployed after graduation and learn the hard way law is a Good Ole Boys Club
ReplyDeleteLaw really is an old-boys' club. And "old" not as in "Old Guy" but as in "old money".
DeleteYeah, they certainly will tout their fine institution as being a good stepping stone for dolts to make their fortunes in "international law." In reality the only "international" matters most would handle would be low-paying immigration cases.
ReplyDeleteBeing on the border is enough for them to frame themselves as "international"? How many of their proposed "students" will speak Spanish? How many of their professors?
DeleteMexico uses civil law. Are they going to teach that? ¿En español?
This is going to go down as well as another El Paso project, the film "Manos, the 'Hands' of Fate" (1966), which is one of the greatest turkeys of regional film-making since Chicago's "Monster a-Go-Go" (begun in 1961 as a Bill Rebane flick called "Terror at Half-Day" and "finished" in 1965 by Herschell Gordon Lewis to fill a double bill.)
ReplyDeleteI don't follow trashy films, but I do wonder why the people today who insist on the "need" for another law school didn't grab up Valpo when they had the chance. Valpo was so far gone that it couldn't even give itself away. Why not take a free law school with a history going back more than a hundred years? Would that not be easier than starting one from scratch? And when Valpo priced at $0 didn't move, why should an upstart über-toilet fare better?
Delete"....why the people today who insist on the "need" for another law school didn't grab up Valpo when they had the chance. Valpo was so far gone that it couldn't even give itself away. Why not take a free law school with a history going back more than a hundred years?"
DeleteBecause they think they can do the job "better" starting raw. It's insane, but so was how San Diego State demolished San Diego/Jack Murphy stadium (opened 1967) when they got the land, just to build a smaller venue because they could never fill the old one with their football games. And San Diego no longer has an NFL-grade football team!
You must be right. That would be typical of their self-importance and arrogance.
DeleteRight there in Indiana (where Valpo breathed its last), Indiana Tech proclaimed before ground had been broken that it would start life ahead of two established law schools in the state. Why, exactly? Just because they were involved? Of course, that prediction was dashed to bits against the rocks of reality.
Manos was one of Mystery Science Theatre's movies; I believe it's on YouTube. And why do I read anything about Texas in J.R. Ewing's voice?
DeleteIn other news, Charleston the Charlatan has switched to non-profit status, with "acquiescence" from the ABA. Anything to perpetuate the scam.
ReplyDeleteWhen the lemmings see "non-profit" they will think that the law school promotes served a public interest to better society. How is graduating students with $250,000 in debt and no job prospects helping society?
DeleteA very good question. Another: why did this wretched über-toilet switch to non-profit status? Was the glorious establishment not generating immense profits?
DeleteThey switched because the regulators have a tendency to single out the for-profits as low-hanging fruit, and/or because the place isn't doing well enough to pay its owners a dividend anymore, and they might even be being put in a position of needing to bail it out.
DeleteSo if they can't find anyone who wants to buy it, they set up a c3 and donate the school's assets to it, if the department of ed and ABA etc approve. The investor probably already made their investment back many times over by this point, and that "donation" will result in a very nice tax deduction for them, so its an appealing for any law school investor/owner who can't find a buyer and needs an exit strategy.
This vanity project at U.T. El Paso has a good chance of going through: The University of Texas system is a holy cow to Republicans and Democrats alike in Texas. What UT wants, UT usually gets. Politicians in the Rio Grande Valley have been gunning for a law school for a number of years and they can always sell it as giving "access" to the legal profession to Latinos and improving availability of legal service in the region. Of course, as has been discussed here before, if a region does not have enough attorneys, it is not because there is not a nearby law school. Rather, it is because the region is unattractive to attorneys, usually because they cannot make money there.
ReplyDeleteThis "international law" specialty fantasy is ludicrous. What would graduates of such a toilet do across the boarder? Become social warriors and fight for immigrant rights on a voluntary basis? Defend drug cartel dons a la Saul Goodman? Represent defendants in extradition cases? I think not. For the few who pass the board it will likely be a steady diet of DUI cases, domestic assault defenses, and possibly low-paying immigration crapola.
There is a similar trend in medical education in Texas, which is to build medical schools in medically underserved areas. While the medical schools themselves provide healthcare to locals, it otherwise does no good to churn out med school graduates when there are not enough specialty residency spots available for most of them and when practicing medicine in some of these areas is not financially attractive.
The university may get an über-toilet law school, but it won't sustain the damn thing. Year after year it will come begging for money. How long will the state go on supporting it? It will end up being another failed vanity project à la Indiana Tech. Of course, by that time, a hundred million or so will have been wasted on the building alone.
DeleteTexas already shits out far too many graduates who cannot work in law, whether because they never become called to the bar or because had to cannot find jobs. Adding a law school, particularly an über-toilet, will only make matters worse.
A medical school in some dire area will attract inferior students. It will be the Cooley of the medical profession. (I used to think of medicine as offering the finest professional training. No longer: I have seen too many physicians who didn't know where the goddamn islets of Langerhans were, or what caused warts.)
As for "international law", it is indeed ridiculous. Rare is the law student in the US who could become qualified in Mexico, with its different language and different legal system. Practicing the law of Texas in Mexico is also unrealistic. international law has mainly to do with matters of state and with some technical issues such as the jurisdiction in which litigation belongs. Proximity to the border offers no real advantage for any of that. Nor would an über-toileteer be well placed to practice in these areas.
DeleteWhen I went to law school there were 175 ABA accredited law schools. I believe there are still over 200 at present despite the number of closures. I was wondering, using the simpler quartile ranking system as opposed to Old Guy's more perceptive 7 tiers, where these additional 25 + law schools fall in the the rankings? I would have to assume that most are in the 4th quartile. In fact, has anyone ever conducted an analysis of foundational date with ranking. I would think that very few if any law schools established after 1945 are any higher than the third quartile with most being in the fourth. Is any law school established since 1945 in the first or second quartile?
ReplyDeleteThe number is around 200, yes. The last time I checked, it was about 195. It was over 200 several years ago.
DeleteI have not studied the positions of the schools opened in the past few decades, but indeed those schools would overwhelmingly fall into the lowest category. Irvine is the notable exception, thanks to special circumstances that have been discussed here before.
It would be difficult to establish a new law school of quality today. The best students will go to the law schools of solid reputation, and of course a new school has no reputation at all. Probably Princeton could pull it off, owing to the institution’s prestige. But not even the noblest intentions would make a success of an upstart without real clout. Unfair, perhaps, but that's reality.
"Is any law school established since 1945 in the first or second quartile?"
DeleteUC Irvine comes to mind. Founded 2006, ranks #42 in USNWR, and has a 25th percentile LSAT of 164 and a median of 167, putting it on par with schools like GW and Emory.
As to tiers, I think there's really three of them:
1. Top 14- self explanatory, places most people who want it in biglaw and/or federal clerkships.
2. Trap schools: Places a not-insignificant number of students in the above jobs, but its usually like 1 in 4 or 1 in 3. Even if you assume few of them had preexisting connections (itself a big assumption) it's still more likely than not you'll be screwed because the other 3 out of 4 or 2 out of 3 have about the same prospects as those in tier 3 below. But it's enough of a chance to lure in those mid-160s LSAT types, who frankly are quite smart at that level of achievement and probably could have done many other better things with their lives, hence the "trap."
3. Everything else = toilet. Some toilets are probably stinkier than others, but on the whole, not much worth ranking them against each other. Absent connections, you're not going to get a job out of these or if you do, it'll be 50k for 4000 billables a year or a purely "eat what you kill" type of arrangement, or if you're REALLY lucky it'll be some government thing but it'll need you to move to the middle of nowhere.