Yet Another Law School Merger? UC San Diego, Meet Cal Western

Thanks to Paul Caron,  we learn that the San Diego Union is reporting that UC San Diego and California Western Law School have entered into preliminary negotiations to merge - or perhaps, simply, to affiliate.  Apparently, there is talk of entering into a Michigan State / Detroit College of Law agreement which allows for a single name, but separate corporate entities.   This presumably would allow UCSD to have a law school at little or no cost.  In exchange, Cal Western gets the reputational bump that comes with being renamed after a great state university.   I am certain that there will be lots of questions - particularly given the recent arrival of Irvine Law.  And this story comes on the heels of the (admittedly very different) UMass - SNESL merger controversy.  We'll be watching this  closely.   

On a related note,  until this article I'd thought that Detroit College of Law had merged into MSU.  But for better or worse, that's not the case...as the disclaimer at the bottom of each page of the MSU Law website explains.

Comments

[Scott Boone]

Additionally, Franklin Pierce Law Center was in talks with the University of New Hampshire last year. I don't know where it stands now.

[Joan Howarth]

Michigan State College of Law's affiliation with Michigan State University is legally complex, probably unique, and very successful. Of course, if there were a hope of gaining a tuition break for our students by a simple merger, we could be proceeding in that direction. But this is not the era for increased taxpayer spending for professional education. In light of that reality, our affiliation -- a private college academically integrated with a strong public research university, but separate as to finances and governance -- makes a great deal of sense. That's why other deans are envious of what we've created. A lot of people talk about public-private partnerships, but we've created a successful one. The closest analogy I know of is Cornell, which is a reverse model, with public colleges (not law) a part of a private university. My guess is that the benefits of our Michigan State model will be widely appreciated five, ten and twenty years down the road....