Law Schools, Texas

The ABA Is Giving Us A New Law School

There's another law school in an oversaturated market... and that's a good thing.

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Laptop in classic libraryThe ABA has granted provisional accreditation to the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law, giving us one more real law school in the already crowded market of law schools. The difference is… this is a good thing.

This isn’t to say the world really needed another law school. Hell, TEXAS didn’t need another law school. But what UNT offers is critically important to the legal academy — it’s cheap. While America faces the troubling lawyer supply conundrum of too many lawyers for declining top-flight jobs and simultaneously not enough lawyers for public interest and underserved market roles, UNT is filling the niche of providing a low-cost legal education for people who won’t then run away from lower-paying work. In fact, UNT makes expanding legal education to low-income communities part of its mission, offering its scholarships based on financial need, not on LSAT mastery.

So, obviously, the ABA dragged its heels on accrediting UNT because after years of gleefully accrediting diploma mills to tend to the relatively affluent — or at least those credit-worthy enough to be relatively affluent on paper — they suddenly had concerns that these law students might not be able to pass the bar exam. Apparently not charging an arm and a leg triggered the ABA’s spidey sense. We can’t start giving out law degrees here! Lawyers might start actually helping people!

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and offered UNT provisional accreditation (as we would have if we were in charge). This doesn’t absolve UNT of its obligation to put its graduates in a position to work in the profession — UNT may be half the cost of Texas, but that’s still a lot of money — and we’ll continue to hold them to the fire if they’re failing to mint lawyers capable of paying back their education.

But it’s good to see a school proving that lawyers can be made without a mountain of debt. If only some other schools would pay attention.

UNT Law School Gets One Step Closer to Accreditation [DMagazine]

Earlier: Why One Law School Is Bucking The Downward Trend On Applications

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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