Another Massachusetts Law School?
Feb 03, 2010
9 Comments
There are just a few law schools in the Boston area and yesterday the Board of Higher Education approved a new competitor with the conversion of Southern New England School of Law into a public Massachusetts law school. UMass Dartmouth, which is adopting Southern New England, is supposed to operate free of state dollars and eventually turn a profit according to a Boston Globe article. Dean Garvey said last week in the state of the school that the model where the law school sends money to the university has been reversed with increasing expenditures on financial aid and school resources supported by the larger institution. Thus, one has to wonder how UMass Dartmouth plans to turn a profit with an in-state tuition and no current ABA accreditation. Most important what will the impact be on the already crowded Boston legal market?
Who posted this article?
/threadjackthis place is overridden with mice. i’ve seen 3 in the past week. i even heard someone found a dead one in the candy machine.
The poll seems somewhat incomplete. Will the new law school hurt BC Law applications? I’d say no b/c they are drawing from different groups. Will the new law school hurt BC Law grads? I’d say yes as a function of there being more attorneys searching for a finite number of jobs in MA (as I understand it, since the school lacks ABA accreditation the grads could only work in MA).
I wonder why anyone would go to a school that lacks ABA accreditation.
Amy –If someone fully intended to practice in Massachusetts, ABA accreditation isn’t all that important, since you can still be admitted to the bar in MA regardless of the MA law school you attend. And if your comment is aimed more at quality… well, maybe it isn’t the worst thing to be jobless and $30k in debt if the alternative is being jobless and $120k in debt.
$120K in debt? Who is graduating from BC with only $120K in debt? Or were you just talking about tuition debt? I’m looking at $175K in debt right now (not counting any credit card debt accumulated during my time here so that I could actually afford to eat) w/ no job. That is exactly why someone would rather go to a law school that lacks accreditation. If you want to just simply be a privately practicing attorney in a small town around MA, why in the world would you ever think of spending $180K on this education?
the thing is, you never know whether you fully intend to practice law in a particular state for the rest of your life, do you?
Amy –Can’t claim to be an expert on this, but I’m pretty sure that a lot of state bars would admit you after practicing for 5-7 years in MA. And, I think some MA people do know that they want to hang around here forever. Well, I guess we kind of do know that, seeing as the other unaccredited law schools in MA aren’t having enrollment problems.
The school is not going to be unaccredited forever and usually the ABA grants some sort of preliminary approval pretty soon after opening (if they deem the school worthy). UC Irvine is a good example of the process (and the attractiveness of going to an as of yet unaccredited law school – the first year students there the first year it was open received tuition paid).
This school undoubtedly will be in a completely different league than BC. True, as the above commenter mentioned, BC will be competing with the graduates for jobs at some point. But do you really think a Umass student (top 30% of class) can compete with a BC student (top 30% of class)? I highly doubt it. BC is one of the most prestigious law schools in MA with a strong alumni network. Does Umass have an alumni network? Not at all. BC for the win.