• The KillerFrogs

OT--law school available

rifram09

rifram09

Active Member
It would be great if TCU was willing to sink the resources into it. But private schools aren't well positioned in legal education unless they are already well established or willing to offer extensive scholarship. A $120k+ law degree at an unranked law school is a very poor financial decision. Probably only 10-30% of the graduates each year will make enough to justify the cost. If we could get the cost for students down to about $45-65k, it could be very competitive in FW. But that would take a significant investment from the university.

Edit: plus A&M Law would be a big problem. They are already killing it in FW because they are offering a law degree at a reasonable price with a big name on it... and they have a huge head start on us. If they ever move their school to College Station, that opens the door for us to leverage the FW legal market. But I doubt they will ever do that.

Edit 2: my dream scenario (probably never going to happen) would be for South Texas COL in Houston to look for a merger, and we convince A&M to take their school to Houston (which is way closer to CS and there are tons of Aggies). We could then easily open up a TCU Law School in FW. We would have to shell out major cash to convince A&M to move to Houston and even more cash to invest properly in a law program. So it ain't happening. Would be a good fit for all parties though.
 
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TCUdirtbag

TCUdirtbag

Active Member
Lol no.

One: the last thing this state needs is another law school.
Two: the last thing the metroplex needs is another law school.
Three: TCU is never going to compete in the north Texas market. A&M filled a niche need for a public law school closer than Lubbock/Houston that’s not as highly competitive for admission as UT. SMU and Baylor are far too established for TCU to compete in that market with no law alumni base and a small overall alumni base. The astronomical amount of resources A&M has poured in are publicly funded. TCU would get squeezed out and not add much to our academic portfolio. Law school dream is gone. On with the med school project and no looking back.
 
GoFrog Yourself

GoFrog Yourself

Active Member
South Texas should have let Aggy buy them when they had the chance. The schools reputation outside of Houston is almost non-existent but the professors there are excellent. If it had the backing of a big name it could flourish, but instead decided to fight with UH over its name and wasted a fair amount of money in the process. Combine that with the recent poor stats on bar passage and I’m not enthusiastic to call myself an alum
 
F

FrogFrog

Active Member
GoFrog Yourself said:
South Texas should have let Aggy buy them when they had the chance. The schools reputation outside of Houston is almost non-existent but the professors there are excellent. If it had the backing of a big name it could flourish, but instead decided to fight with UH over its name and wasted a fair amount of money in the process. Combine that with the recent poor stats on bar passage and I’m not enthusiastic to call myself an alum
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South Texas was in favor of it and had the deal done, but UT blocked it.

It was considered a "done deal" so much that a buddy of mine graduated from South Texas and they gave him a A&M diploma.

Rice showed interest at some point, but they required the school to be located on Rice's campus and that muddied the waters a bit.
 
researchfrog

researchfrog

Active Member
If we could put the Valparaiso/TCU law campus in the Valley and offer generous scholarships and competitive tuition, then it might work. Maybe a public/private collaboration with UT Pan American like we're doing with University of North Texas on the medical school.
 
Deep Purple

Deep Purple

Full Member
TCUSA said:
I've been an advocate for a law school since we opened the School of Engineering. Here's a great one that's available to move here or stay on its home campus and become a satellite campus for us...


https://www.insidehighered.com/news...197540065&mc_cid=3014a8e6a8&mc_eid=3eba6bfea2
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TCU already researched the possibility of acquiring or creating a law school. Some of the findings:
  • Texas is already saturated with law schools and has too many practicing attorneys.
  • North Texas is a particularly bad place to start a law school because SMU, University of North Texas, A&M, and Baylor are already here.
  • A law school doesn't enhance an institution's visibility or reputation nearly as much as a medical school.
  • While Texas has a surplus of lawyers, it has a critical shortage of physicians (ranks 45th in no. of doctors per 100,000 population).
 
F

froginaustin

Active Member
It would take a YUUGE investment for TCU to open a law school that would compete with those already up and running. There's a reason Whittier and Valpo, both small universities with way above average academics, are winding down law programs. The market for new law grads is saturated.

On the other hand, there is apparently a demand for a lot more physicians. Reading between the lines-- wasn't the first entering class for the new med school pushed back a year?-- TCU had better focus on getting the M.D. school funded and operating, or risk looking like a bunch of schmucks if it is not successful without further set backs.

I hope I am wrong about the opening date for the M.D. school being pushed back.

ED: My wild guess is that, if a law school was feasible at TCU, a deal would have been made for Wesleyan's or a new law school opened, a few years back. Sort of like planting a tree; the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.
 
Brog

Brog

Full Member
froginaustin said:
It would take a YUUGE investment for TCU to open a law school that would compete with those already up and running. There's a reason Whittier and Valpo, both small universities with way above average academics, are winding down law programs. The market for new law grads is saturated.

On the other hand, there is apparently a demand for a lot more physicians. Reading between the lines-- wasn't the first entering class for the new med school pushed back a year?-- TCU had better focus on getting the M.D. school funded and operating, or risk looking like a bunch of schmucks if it is not successful without further set backs.

I hope I am wrong about the opening date for the M.D. school being pushed back.

ED: My wild guess is that, if a law school was feasible at TCU, a deal would have been made for Wesleyan's or a new law school opened, a few years back. Sort of like planting a tree; the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.
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I'm curious. What lines did you read between that makes y ou think the MD school's first entering class is pushed back a year? Hadn't seen any hint of this in other postings.
 
TCUdirtbag

TCUdirtbag

Active Member
Brog said:
I'm curious. What lines did you read between that makes y ou think the MD school's first entering class is pushed back a year? Hadn't seen any hint of this in other postings.
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The originally discussed a fall 2018 open date. They’ve bumped that to fall 2019.
 
Hoosierfrog

Hoosierfrog

Tier 1
Deep Purple said:
TCU already researched the possibility of acquiring or creating a law school. Some of the findings:
  • Texas is already saturated with law schools and has too many practicing attorneys.
  • North Texas is a particularly bad place to start a law school because SMU, University of North Texas, A&M, and Baylor are already here.
  • A law school doesn't enhance an institution's visibility or reputation nearly as much as a medical school.
  • While Texas has a surplus of lawyers, it has a critical shortage of physicians (ranks 45th in no. of doctors per 100,000 population).
Click to expand...

The country is saturated with law schools. Just what we need, more lawyers. There are so many all you see is crappy day time ads begging people to hire them so they defend their interests for a mere 25 to 35 percent of whatever they can settle a case for. Every 15 mph fender bender is worth thousands in injuries.
 
Spike

Spike

Full Member
NO MORE LAW SCHOOLS! There are 9 in the state as is, and 3 in the metroplex now. Most have both day and night programs, cranking out new lawyers at an insane rate with a ton of non-dischargeable debt and just about ZERO job prospects.

Terrible idea that needs to die.
 
Spike

Spike

Full Member
GoFrog Yourself said:
South Texas should have let Aggy buy them when they had the chance. The schools reputation outside of Houston is almost non-existent but the professors there are excellent. If it had the backing of a big name it could flourish, but instead decided to fight with UH over its name and wasted a fair amount of money in the process. Combine that with the recent poor stats on bar passage and I’m not enthusiastic to call myself an alum
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I loved my alma mater. Great school but some questionable decisions from the leadership.
 
RollToad

RollToad

Baylor is Trash.
Spike said:
NO MORE LAW SCHOOLS! There are 9 in the state as is, and 3 in the metroplex now. Most have both day and night programs, cranking out new lawyers at an insane rate with a ton of non-dischargeable debt and just about ZERO job prospects.

Terrible idea that needs to die.
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You just want to squash the competition!
 
YA

YA

Active Member
Aggie law has smaller class sizes each year since taking over Wesleyan. The result is higher lsat scores and smaller acceptance rates. School will be top 75 in 10 years or less.
 
TCUdirtbag

TCUdirtbag

Active Member
YA said:
Aggie law has smaller class sizes each year since taking over Wesleyan. The result is higher lsat scores and smaller acceptance rates. School will be top 75 in 10 years or less.
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I’m very impressed with what they’ve done in a short time - tons of money for scholarships to get better students and went and hired some great faculty.

Also will push back on a couple points made above: law school enrollment is down over the past 5ish years. I believe there were 200-300 fewer to sit for the Texas Bar this year than 5 years ago. Considering the systems population growth that’s notable. Also, I believe evening programs are going by the wayside. SMU dropped theirs so you’ll so an enrollment/Bar taker decrease hit again soon (program was 1/3 of their grads).
 

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