Faculty Hiring: UNT-Dallas

From an email message that I received a day or two ago:

The University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law invites applications for 4-5 full time faculty members who would begin teaching in the academic year 2014-2015.  The areas in which these faculty members will teach may include Contracts, Criminal Law, Civil Procedure, Legislation, Property, Torts, Constitutional Law, and Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing.  These positions will be tenure-track or tenured positions, although possibly one position will be a term or continuing term contract position.

The College of Law is a new public law school that will enroll its inaugural class in Fall 2014.  The College of Law plans to enroll one full-time section of approximately 80 students, and one part-time evening division of 40-45 students.  For the near-term future, each entering class will include a day section and an evening section of approximately these sizes.

The College of Law’s goals are:
(1) widening access to legal education for those who could be superb legal professionals but who cannot realistically access a legal education given factors including location, cost, and the current role of the LSAT in admission to and financing of law school;
(2) providing an educational program focused on excellence in developing practice-related competencies, through a curriculum mapped to those competencies and using best instructional practices, including multiple formative and summative assessment throughout, engaged class design, and a spectrum of experiential education;
(3) creating opportunity for our students by keeping tuition and debt low and producing graduates with high value and ability in multiple segments of the market for legal services;
(4) becoming a national leader in advancing understanding of best legal education practices, of professional formation, and of the relationship between legal education and the evolving practice and business of law; and
(5) serving as a valuable partner with the legal profession and the DFW community.

The positions will include tenure-track or tenured appointments, at the rank of assistant, associate, or full professor.  Rank will depend on qualifications.  Possibly, at least one position may take the form of a term or continuing term appointment.  The College of Law will not have a separate appointment “track” for instructors of legal writing (or legal writing, analysis, and research).  Instead, faculty members will likely teach both a substantive law class and a section of legal writing.  The appointments will be academic-year appointments.

Faculty members in these positions will teach the substantive law courses in the first year curriculum for the inaugural class; in addition, these faculty members will teach legal writing in small sections.  For instance, a faculty member might teach Contracts to the entire 1L section (80 students), and also teach legal writing to a 20-student subgroup of the section.  These teaching assignments may be repeated in the second year of the College of Law’s operation, even though additional faculty members will be hired by that time.  Once the law school is in its third year and the faculty is closer to its full staffing levels, faculty members can expect to teach in the first-year and upper-level courses (including sections of legal writing), depending on need, interest, expertise, and other factors.  All faculty members will be involved in curricular and co-curricular activities and programs relating to student learning and professional formation throughout law school.

Faculty members will be expected to follow best instructional practices, including multiple formative and summative assessment; to design courses in ways that make best use of technology; to follow a curriculum mapped to practice-related competencies; to develop, use, and revise learning outcomes; and to participate in course and program assessment.  The College of Law will support faculty in these areas by providing training, course design expertise, and learning management system support.  As to scholarship, given the mission and goals of the UNT Dallas College of Law, the definition of scholarship is intended to be broad, including scholarship that is valuable to lawyers and judges, that relates to the teaching and learning process in law, or that relates to the profession or the formation of professional competencies.

Interested candidates should apply at https://unt-dallas.peopleadmin.com/postings/1116

Comments

[Barry]

Is this going to be like Indiana Tech?

[dailyshow]

The country needs another law school like a fish needs a bicycle.

[ATLprof]

Actually, dailyshow, I'll play "devil's advocate" on that one. This will be a public law school with a commitment to lowering law school costs. The law school market needs low cost options to place downward pressure on tuition rates.

(In contrast to the private Indiana Tech, Barry, that charges almost $30,000 in tuition)

One of the primary reasons tuition has skyrocketed in the past few decades is that so many public law schools have ballooned their tuition rates, removing one factor that acted as a partial brake on tuition increases.

[BoredJD]

This sounds like something that is in between the traditional high-cost Harvard-style school, and the regional or local schools the Monterey dean has been blogging about. The school seems to be trying to keep tuition and class size low while trying to market their grads towards local jobs at small firms and government, which is a smart plan that acknowledges the realities of the hiring market. I wonder if they'll get accredited.

I think we need fewer law schools, but I'd be willing to trade one of the existing ones for a school like this.

[Barry]

What tuition will the school charge, ATLProf?

[dailyshow]

ATLProf -- UCIrvine started with free tuition for the first year, and very affordable for the second and third years of operation, and commitment to public service. It now charges $46,800 in state, $53,300 out of state.

UNT, of course, could probably not attract students if it charged more initially in the current environment. If it catches on, I do not see what would stop them from charging what UTexas, another school in the same system charges, and they are up to $49,000 for out of state tuition.

So I do not assume that a new school is "needed" because of its low cost, because that low cost need not go on for long.

[Barry]

ATLProf: "Actually, dailyshow, I'll play "devil's advocate" on that one. This will be a public law school with a commitment to lowering law school costs. The law school market needs low cost options to place downward pressure on tuition rates. "

I wonder which side 'devil's advocate' would be here :)

The side against the mainstream, powers-that-be side would be that law school is far too expensive, and that any new one will be far too expensive.

However, the side against goodness would be in favor of another law school sending students into a rotting JD job market carrying $150K on up of nondischargeable debt.

[harold]

But how will UNT Dallas attract qualified faculty if, presumably, they can makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in private practice relative to what UNT will be able to pay?

Why would anyone want to apply for these faculty positions?

[ATLprof]

The UCI example is a bit spurious, at best. They never said they wanted to be a public law school aimed at keeping costs down. They aimed to be a top ranked law school. They are an example of what I meant by public schools being something other than public schools. They did not give students free rides as a way of "keeping costs down," and then jacked up their prices later. They gave students a free ride in order to buy better students.

UNT has already said how much discount their first students will be getting and what the tuition will be after the initial class. And they've guaranteed that prices will not change while a student is in school. If it is 12.9K/year when you enter, that's what it will be for your three years.

Now will they ever raise? It's possible. It's possible for any school. I doubt it is likely. (1) From a competitive standpoint, they would have a hard time raising it over Houston's tuition rates. (2) The main reason why schools raise tuition is to compete in the US NEWS rankings. UNT will not be able to compete. No new school can do that unless they choose to follow the UCI or St. Thomas (MN) model. Clearly, UNT has not chosen to do that.

For me it comes down to what BoredJD said. Trading this type of law school for an existing one.

I'm more interested in realistic solutions to the problem, rather than some sort of "get rid of law schools by fiat" argument - which has no basis in what could happen. (And as an aside, what that would actually involve, what it would be equivalent to, is not something I think most advocates have thought through - but that is a much longer discussion.)

I would prefer that public law schools, whether new or established, would go back to being public law schools rather than jacking up their tuition for the purpose of playing the rankings game. If they all did that, they could starve the for-profit law schools (such as the Infilaw schools) into non-existence. Public schools could beat them on price and thus capture all the qualified students (another discussion). Now this would not cause the for-profits to simply throw up their arms and quit the game, but it would drive down their numbers and eventually their output measures (bar pass) to an extent that they actually could lose accreditation.

Unfortunately, many public schools have chosen to pursue rankings instead and that has left the door wide open for (1) the creation of for-profit schools and (2) the steep inflation of tuition rates (though it is not the only factor in that, the BigLaw bubble played as large a role).

Why did (do) public schools decide to play the ranking games? Because the market in so many forms demanded it of them - whether that be hiring law firms, prospective students, or alumni. They al scream and scream if rankings drop. So what is a public law school to do? Many have responded to those market pressures.

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble on now. The short version - I think public law schools being public law schools presents a realistic approach to the problem.

[ATLprof]

Oh, and for Harold, there is plenty of interest in the market for such professor positions, even for a public school charging public appropriate tuition rates.

[harold]

I don't at all doubt that there is plenty of interest in the market for such professor positions.

I was using sarcasm with regard to the typical faculty argument that they all need to be paid top dollar for plum high quality of life jobs otherwise no school would be able to attract top talent away from practice.

[dailyshow]

ATL Prof -- Re: "The main reason why schools raise tuition is to compete in the US NEWS rankings."

Cooley raised tuition probably more than anyone else this year (up to $43,000) and I do not think they expect to ever get out of the unranked tier in the US News rankings.

That being said, I think public schools being public schools can keep tuition down. But it will not replace a school -- it will simply add one. Ultimately, it will mean reaching lower into the applicant pool by both this school and its competitors, and adding to the number of new lawyers.