Recession Delays Some New Law Schools

Slow fund raising and state budget cuts are delaying plans for several new law schools that were expected to open over the next few years, The National Law Journal reported today.

Almost a dozen new law schools have been in the planning stages in the past year. Some are pushing back opening dates, while others may be delayed indefinitely if fund raising and state funds for the schools do not come through.

Louisiana College, in Pineville, La., may delay the scheduled 2010 opening of its law school by one year unless the college can raise at least $7-million in the next two months. Donors have been taking a wait-and-see approach because of the economy.

Concordia University in Portland, Ore., will delay its planned 2010 opening by one year. Other institutions, including the University of New Haven, in Connecticut, and St. John Fisher College, in New York, may have their proposals for a law school shelved indefinitely if they are unable to raise tens of millions of dollars, the journal reported.

A few schools are still on track to open soon. Husson University, in Bangor, Me., will open an evening law school next year, though big gifts from law firms are down. The University of California at Irvine will open a new law school this fall, after raising more than $28-million for student scholarships and faculty endowments and receiving a $2-million grant for an environmental-law clinic.

“If we’d been a year later, who knows?” Charles Cannon, assistant dean of development and external affairs for the Irvine law school, told the journal. “Because so many things were in place when they were, we’re sailing ahead.” —Kathryn Masterson