Details are very sketchy at this point, but the University of Maine is exploring the possibility of merging its law and business schools into the Alfond Graduate and Professional Center in Portland. From the Portland Press Herald:
The initial planning anticipates a program that would use faculty from all the programs, with Orono faculty either commuting to Portland or teaching via videoconference or online, according to Vendean Vafiades, a spokeswoman for the law school.
It's not clear whether the programs would simply be combined physically - most likely - or whether they would be unified as a single faculty with a single dean. The ABA would surely have something to say about that.
I won't be surprised if we see other universities thinking this way. They are, after all, seeking ways to shave law school overhead. We've already seen Wash U move law library management out of the law school. Combining physical space is another logical step, given the important connections between law and fields like business, international affairs, political science, and the like.
The merger of faculty and administration is another matter. Many business schools already have legal studies departments which function, someone irrationally, in an entirely separate orbit from the sibling law schools. ABA approval of merged faculty and administration, however, would be a sea change.
Perhaps Maine will test the willingness of the ABA to tolerate that sort of change.
I really want to see the ABA push back on this, because I think that will be a quicker path to the state bars taking away the ABA's relevance. The organization has been shown again and again to be completely incompetent in regulating law schools.
Posted by: twbb | June 03, 2014 at 10:53 AM
Commute? It is 140 miles each way from Orono to Portland! To put that in perspective for Drexel Dan, that is the same distance as commuting from Philadelphia to Washington DC, or from Boston to New Haven.
Posted by: Maineiac | June 03, 2014 at 11:49 AM