Why is Belmont C Starting a Law School?

Graduate School Law School
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<p>We’ll see if the administrators allow this thread to remain on the site since Belmont College is obviously spending a lot of time advertizing here.</p>

<p>However, I’d like to know the answer to my question. It is widely understood that our country does not need any more fourth tier law schools to suck money out of students, put them deeply into debt and launch them into a highly competitive field where they will likely be unemployed because of the low standing of their institution. And, don’t take my word for it. Here’s a long piece from the NY Times on this topic:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=business[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=business&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Why is Belmont College starting a new law school at this point in time, and why does College Confidential allow them to advertize here?</p>

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<p>Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?</p>

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<p>I was incredulous as well when I heard about Belmont starting a law school. Where is the ABA on all this? Why are any new schools being accredited? I really think the legal profession needs to become more like the medical profession in terms of “pulling up the ladder.” I realize that is not an egalitarian stance, but do we want to ignore the facts so thousands of students at sub par law schools can be “egalitarian” in their massive indebtedness and unemployment? (The Sunday NYT article, anyone?)</p>

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<p>Why is Belmont doing it? Because everyone is is:</p>

<p>The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth recently acquired the private independent Southeastern Massachusetts School of Law. SEMSL had been a proprietary unaccredited law school that conveniently built its building next to the UMass Dartmouth campus. A recent graduating class had a 6% pass rate on the Massachusetts bar exam.</p>

<p>UMass officials have said that they plan to obtain accrediation for its new law school without the use of any public funds. The acquisition had strong support among Massachusetts legislators, many of whom will like be faculty members of the school. Tuition for Massachusetts residents is a mere $24,000/year.</p>

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<p>And academics think attorneys are ethically challenged! As the NYT article points out, the reason for all these law schools is that they are absolute cash cows for the universities. What other kind of graduate program can get away with huge lecture classes with a guy with a blackboard in front of the room? (As the article notes, you add 25 students to a large lecture and one million dollars just dropped to the bottom line.) They probably don’t even have to have their own extensive law libraries anymore (which used to be the biggest non-salary cost) since everything can be researched online these days.</p>

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<p>Cash cows? Depends on the school–the lower tier yes (bc there’s not much research going on), upper tier less so bc of research. Some actually take money from the mother school. Arguably academics are overpaid in law. Take a look at UMich’s salaries for the law professors. I’d take a professorship at UMich over BIGLAW any day!</p>

<p>Now with regards to where the ABA is—they’ve been kind of shaky. Rather than accredit new law schools, I think some should be stripped of their accreditation. Supply needs to be controlled if the ABA wants to re-shape the legal market.</p>

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<p>Well, UMass-Dartmouth is a more complicated story. </p>

<p>UMass-D also grew out of a private school. Originally it was Southeast Mass Technological Institute. It focused on textile technology. Then it became Southeastern Mass University and then it was taken over by the state. UMass-D didn’t just spring from the earth as a new branch of UMass. All of the alums of SMTI were given UMass-D degrees. Everyone who was enrolled in the SMU suddenly became a student at UMass-D. In the old days some smart people…including some of my relatives :)…went to SMTI because it was near by and they could commute and/or work while attending college. In its field, it was remarkably successful.( Some of the myriad of synthetic materials that now exist were created by textile chemists who got their undergraduate degrees at SMTI. You’ve probably never heard of it, but I assure you that Human Resource Departments at companies like Dupont were very familiar with it. )</p>

<p>From the beginning the private unaccredited law school was created with the hope that it would one day be taken over and run by UMass-D. One of the reasons the area got a new branch of the state U was that SMTI/SMU already existed and was willing to be taken over and become a branch of UMass. The idea was that this model could be replicated with a law school. </p>

<p>The school wasn’t just built next to UMass-D. UMass-D provided a meal plan with meals eaten in one of UMass’s cafeterias for its students and the law students always had access to UMass’s library and internet resources. </p>

<p>Mass has no public law school. For many years, lots of people in Mass thought there should be one. From the beginning, a group of people felt that if a law school were created right next to UMass-D, then when the day came that Mass decided to fund a public law school, it would be more likely that UMass-D could snag it rather than have it go to UMass-Amherst or UMass-Lowell. (Politically, nobody was much worried about UMass-Boston because Boston already has so many law schools.) </p>

<p>And, Rhode Island has no public law school either. The void was filled by Roger Williams in RI (which is private, has been been ABA accredited since 1995 but existed many years before that) and the private, unaccredited law school next to UMass-D. </p>

<p>For many people, the question wasn’t should Mass build a new law school. It was “lets fight to get the local law school that already exists accredited.” That desire intensified after Roger Williams became accredited in 1995 because that meant lots of folks took their tuition checks over the state line to RI. </p>

<p>Meanwhile, UMass-D has helped the local economy tremendously. People really want to see it become a “national” tier one university. And the folks who run the university think one way to enable the school to become a “national” university is to have an ABA accredited law school as one of its component parts. </p>

<p>I suspect that many of the students will come from the local area and will be people who would have attended the local unaccredited law school or Roger Williams in any event. This is particular true for those attending the part time program. </p>

<p>So, in the UMass-D case I do not think it’s just a matter of UMass-D wanting to grab tuition bucks. UMass-D’s incentive is to advance its long-term plan to become a “national” university. The local residents see an opportunity to get a law degree from an accredited law school–assuming UMass-D gets accredidation --rather than from one that’s unaccredited. </p>

<p>There’s also the hope that the law school will run student clinics which will help local residents. Immigration is a “hot button” topic in the area. I’m sure that any clinic in that field will be inundated by people who want to become clients. The local criminal courts could use clinical programs too. These courts are too far away for law schools in Boston to run clinical programs in them. </p>

<p>So, while I wouldn’t advise anyone who wants to practice “big law” to enroll in the “new” law school, I can understand why many people in the community supported the creation of a law school. The law school may well help UMass-D realize the dream of becoming a tier one U and that will bring more jobs to an area which desperately needs them. </p>

<p>I’m sure this pattern has been repeated in other parts of the country. Local residents don’t think in terms of “Will the graduates of these schools be able to get jobs?” They think in terms of “Wouldn’t it great if this area had a law school?”</p>

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<p>Like other people say, it’s a great investment. The actual cost of educating a law student is surely less than 10k a year. And yet the government will let pretty much anyone with a pulse borrow 20k a year to attend law school. So it’s 10k per year per student in pure profit. </p>

<p>Except that it’s not actually called “profit,” since law schools are generall run as not-for-profits. Instead, the money can be extracted in the form of fat salaries for administrators and professors.</p>