Friday, November 25, 2016

Texas legislators contemplate yet another law school

Scant weeks after the notorious law school at Indiana Tech announced its closure, legislators in Texas proposed the opening of a law school in the southernmost part of the state:

http://www.themonitor.com/news/education/valley-legislators-file-bills-asking-for-a-law-school-in/article_fcdfcaec-b2b7-11e6-ba7c-63883362be4f.html

Why? Because "everybody [else] has a law school". A perfect reason! Why shouldn't every half-ass town in the state get its share of the pork barrel?

In addition, "[t]here are some great, very talented young professionals who for financial reasons or reasons related to family cannot travel to San Antonio, which is our nearest law school". (Wrong: the nearest law school is at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.) The same argument was deployed at Indiana Tech: pity the many "great, very talented young professionals" (even though actually most of the students there were well past 30) who are so poorly served by the mere four other law schools in Indiana and the thirty-odd within a four-hour drive of Fort Wayne!

Not a word is said about demand, quality, prospects for employment, or even the experience of so many failed or failing law schools, including some in Texas itself. Such paltry considerations should not scupper the latest hackademic boondoggle. After all, who gives a flying fuck about the students or the public? Just open the goddamn law school and ask questions later.

19 comments:

  1. "But mommy, everybody else has lupus; why can't I?"

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  2. Law schools are the new political vanity project, not just in Texas(see UNT's recent multi-million dollar expenditure of tax dollars), but also in Washington state(new law school for Takoma(!) proposed-because, you know, Seattle is just too far) and who knows where else.
    And these places aren't Indiana Tech, a private school-these are public schools, paid for lock, stock, and barrel by the taxpayers. These boondoggles make Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere look like a small mistake.

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    1. Tacoma, realistically speaking, is a suburb of Seattle. It is not an independent metropolitan area. It does not need a law school. For that matter, Washington State does not need another law school either. Already it has three—at least one too many.

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    2. If the same airport, SEATAC, can serve Seattle and Tacoma, then Tacoma doesn't need its own law school.

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  3. By my count, Texas has nine law schools, all of them in the fourth tier.

    Admittedly that's fewer per capita than, say, Indiana, which has four law schools (not counting Indiana Tech, which will close within a few months) but only a quarter of the population of Texas.

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  4. Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance KingNovember 25, 2016 at 7:12 PM

    Out of touch Officials made the same pitch for Peoria, Illinois and Bradley University a few years back. They don't talk to Solos earning 37K a year or see the Chicago Billboards proclaiming $49.00 traffic ticket defense. They talk to attorneys who are in the 1%---maybe this is why HRC lost? She's talking about cultural issues, when the economy for shleppers like me is in the dumps...even for somebody with an education. A disconnect. A new law school? What about employing the attorneys you got on hand?

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  5. Why must scammers be so persistent? Apparently, certain Texas legislators have tried several times before to get State approval and funding for a Rio Grande Law School. This, in spite of a 2010 report by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board that concluded that the state does not face a shortage of lawyers.

    http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2013/03/04/consolidated-school-in-rio-grande-valley-may-include-law-school

    The 2013 effort to establish a Rio Grande Law School was led by State Rep. Eddie Lucio III, the same legislator who is spearheading the current effort.

    In 2013, Lucio was pricelessly quoted as saying “I’m not naive to the cost restraints of establishing a new school. . . I’m not naive to the fact that we’re going to probably spend a substantial amount of money establishing this umbrella university in South Texas, but we can’t stop having the conversation.”

    I am glad that Lucio disclaims naivete. However, naivete is seldom the cause of a politician's quest to spend tens of millions of other people's money on a local vanity project that expert opinion deems unnecessary or counterproductive. Rather, a certain cynical and manipulative sophistication is at play, which may or may not be known by some as scam artistry.

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  6. There are not possibly by any stretch enough jobs in Texas or nearby for this law school to open. There is a law school 275 miles away in San Antonio which has a 47% employment score from law school transparency and a law school in Lubbock with a 60% employment score. There are not going to be jobs for most of the lawyers graduating from this proposed law school in an already supersaturated job market.

    The money would be better spent on scholarships for college where a student can get a degree and use it in one of the many fields where the job market is not super-saturated with workers. Training students for jobs in health care or education, fields with a strong demand for workers, makes more sense than opening a law school in a legal market that cannot absorb more law graduates. There are already a more than a million more graduates of ABA accredited law schools than lawyer jobs.

    This is a plan to bring jobs for administrators and the local area, and the law students, who will have much debt and horrible employment outcomes - who cares? Let the law students be damned if the law school is good for the local economy. The purpose of law school is to bring jobs to the local area. The law students' horrible employment outcomes and huge life-long debts are not important.

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  7. Let Lucio admit that the graduates of this proposed law school will suffer horrific employment outcomes, because the demand for lawyers in Texas, as everywhere else, is shrinking or flat.

    Let Lucio admit that the proposal is to train lawyers, mostly for unemployment, by creating jobs for administrators at the proposed law school and for economic benefit to the surrounding area.

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  8. The current Indiana Tech students could transfer and finish their law degrees at the Rio Grande Law School. See, it makes perfect sense.

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  9. i want to see the feasibility study.

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    1. They're saving their money by using this one, mutatis mutandis:

      http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.ca/2015/04/indiana-techs-missing-law-school.html

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  10. Per Wiki, in this area, "Males had a median income of $21,410 versus $15,597 for females. The per capita income for the county was $13,695."

    Sadly, a law school edumacation wouldn't increase gross income any, and net income would fall because of the law school debt, prescriptions for anti-depressants, gallons of Tito's Vodka for self-medication, and the like.

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    1. But the median income will go up once they lure Dougie Fresh and Lamparello to the new law skule. Better act now before those gods of jurisprudence move into sable-carpeted corner offices in Manhattan.

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    2. And good luck finding clients who can pay enough in legal fees to cover your overhead, let alone let you take home enough of a paycheck to ever get out of debt.

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  11. Not to worry - they will trot out the diversity card.

    South Texas is heavily Hispanic.

    Why do you want to deny a legal education to Hispanics by opposing this law school?

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  12. Yes, it is fourth tier:

    http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.ca/2014/12/guest-post-by-old-guy-which-law-schools.html

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  13. "The money would be better spent on scholarships for college "

    Frankly, it'd be better spent on free beer-n-shrimp barbie parties along South Padre, with complimentary tix to the schlitterbahn each evening after everyone's had enough to eat and drink to vomit their way down the slides.

    That'll wash all the ill-conceived thoughts of LS right out of their silly heads.

    Just one Toad's opinion, of course.

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