Several Washington state senators have proposed providing $400,000 in seed funding to help start a Tacoma campus of the University of Washington School of Law. Tacoma lost its law school in 1999 when the University of Puget Sound sold its law school to Seattle University.
The proposal was apparently news to UW. A spokesman for UW stated that "it's not our request and it's a bit of a surprise."
Apparently, these representatives haven't been watching the market for legal education, the market for lawyers, or the legal education blogosphere.
Details here.
Update: The Tacoma News-Tribune endorses the idea in an editorial here.
As we all know from many recent stories, the founding of law schools is rarely dictated by the market, but by all sorts of theoretically irrelevant factors - influential alumni, the interests of the wealthy, political dealmaking, university president hubris. Tacoma resented losing its law school to Seattle, and now someone sees a political advantage in appealing to those who retain that view. Plus, Washington may be one of the very few states that is not clearly "over-law schooled". It's a growing state with a strong economy, and only one state supported law school (and a total of 3). Compare states such as Michigan and Ohio.
Posted by: Bobo | February 26, 2014 at 01:05 PM
But note: all three law schools had smaller one l classes in 2013 vs. 2012
Posted by: roger dennis | February 26, 2014 at 02:12 PM