More UMass Law School Madness

Today the Boston Globe has an article purportedly explaining the critics of a UMass law school. However, the article then speaks about how the new low priced UMass law school would help lawyers who wouldn't otherwise be able to pursue public interest law into public interest. A couple more points on why a UMass law school is a bad idea.

1. Despite the fact that Southern New England would "become" UMass law and despite the fact that it sounds like this would not really create a new law school, Massachusetts would in fact be creating a new law school through ABA accreditation. There are two tiers of law schools, ABA and non-ABA. The ABA ones count, the non-ABA ones do not. Right now, Southern NE grads can only take the bar exam in MA and CT. A UMass law school would seek ABA accreditation and would be in effect be adding a law school to the list of "real" law schools in Massachusetts.

2. A $24,000 tuition will drive ZERO more lawyers into public interest law. If UMass is serious about driving public interest students to its law school it should do what Cal-Irvine did, give free tuition to its entire opening class. $24,000 tuition means that after three years of tuition and expenses, a UMass graduate will likely have $80-100K in law school debt at graduation.

3. Assuming that these grads have undergrad debt, and UMass law students will be just in need of real jobs as every other law graduate in Massachusetts, and unless UMass law were to raise the millions of dollars needed to finance loan repayment, the only way UMass law accomplishes that is by using tax money. The UMass people are adamant that their plan won't cost public money, but there is no chance it won't. If not on loan repayment, on scholarships or capital contributions or anything to drive people to UMass.

4. Massachusetts already have law schools dedicated to public interest law. Harvard and Northeastern specially, but the other Massachusetts law schools already turn out hundreds of public interest lawyers every year. The restriction on the amount of public interest jobs out there has nothing to do with the number of lawyers, it has to do with the amount of money that public interest employers have. If the state really were interested in the number of public interest lawyers, they would put money in the budget for hiring public defenders, not take over a 5th rate law school.

5. Criticism of the UMass law school by legislators is not just because they went to private law schools supposedly "threatened" by a UMass law school. It is because it is a bad idea. In this economy, a new law school makes no sense, especially when the motivation behind it is as a profit center to UMass-Dartmouth. It will be selling false hope to prospective lawyers that a low debt load will be more help to them than internship opportunities and a thriving alumni community.

Obviously, these are but a few reasons for not adding a UMass law school, but these are clearly some of the most obvious.