Monday, December 12, 2005
Indiana STATE University Wants to Add Law School
This is not a good idea.
The Indianapolis Star is reporting today that Indiana State University of Terre Haute is thinking about adding a law school to its array of top-flight professional and graduate programs.
The Sycamores beat Indiana University at basketball. That's given them all sorts of ideas.
There already exist two public university law programs in Indiana. The Indiana University School of Law at Bloomington and the Indiana University School of Law at Indianapolis are both fine schools. In recent years, the Indianapolis School has improved its standing by moving toward becoming a center for the study of international law.
Additionally, Valparaiso University and the University of Notre Dame both operate long-established and well-regarded law schools.
Why would Indiana State University want to establish a law school?
Indiana Parley would suggest that the reason is that, compared to establishing other professional programs, creating a law school is cheap.
Relatively cheap, mind you. A school needs to establish a library and it needs to hire staff. Other than that, you need to have lecture space. You don't need to equip laboratories; you don't need to equip students. The per student cost of educating a lawyer is pretty darn inexpensive compared to training a physician, a dentist or a veterinarian.
It's pretty well established that there will be a demand by students to be able to matriculate at such a school. Yet it's also pretty well established that there isn't a huge market demand for American lawyers that isn't already being supplied by the nation's existing law schools.
That is, there isn't a real market signal to produce more lawyers. Certainly there is no crying need for more lawyers to be milled at a publicly supported university.
The Indianapolis Star is reporting today that Indiana State University of Terre Haute is thinking about adding a law school to its array of top-flight professional and graduate programs.
The Sycamores beat Indiana University at basketball. That's given them all sorts of ideas.
There already exist two public university law programs in Indiana. The Indiana University School of Law at Bloomington and the Indiana University School of Law at Indianapolis are both fine schools. In recent years, the Indianapolis School has improved its standing by moving toward becoming a center for the study of international law.
Additionally, Valparaiso University and the University of Notre Dame both operate long-established and well-regarded law schools.
Why would Indiana State University want to establish a law school?
Indiana Parley would suggest that the reason is that, compared to establishing other professional programs, creating a law school is cheap.
Relatively cheap, mind you. A school needs to establish a library and it needs to hire staff. Other than that, you need to have lecture space. You don't need to equip laboratories; you don't need to equip students. The per student cost of educating a lawyer is pretty darn inexpensive compared to training a physician, a dentist or a veterinarian.
It's pretty well established that there will be a demand by students to be able to matriculate at such a school. Yet it's also pretty well established that there isn't a huge market demand for American lawyers that isn't already being supplied by the nation's existing law schools.
That is, there isn't a real market signal to produce more lawyers. Certainly there is no crying need for more lawyers to be milled at a publicly supported university.
