Robert V. Ward Jr., dean at the Southern New England School of Law in Dartmouth, says the school could continue on for many more years, if its leaders wanted it to.
But they don’t.
The school, which has an enrollment of several hundred, has been in the black for years. It has relatively little debt, and its cash and real estate total about $22.6 million.
The problem: the School of Law isn’t accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA), and school officials saw little chance of that changing, unless they took some drastic steps.
That’s why the School of Law has offered to donate the school – including its 75,000-square-foot building – to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth just a few miles down the road.
The hope is that merger would create Massachusetts’ first public law school, and that it would have enough resources to earn a national accreditation.
Also, Ward said, he wanted to ensure the new school continued to provide opportunities for minority students, who make up about one-third of the Southern New England School of Law’s enrollment.
“We’ve long desired to be an ABA school,” Ward said. “But we don’t have the ability to sustain the program the way [the ABA] would want. This proposal would allow us to continue on our mission of creating an opportunity for underrepresented groups to become members of the legal profession.”
The possibility of establishing a law program at UMass Dartmouth with a public service focus has drawn a mixed reaction.
Local legislators and a trio of Massachusetts congressmen have thrown their support behind the proposal, saying it would provide a more affordable option for Bay State residents to earn a law degree.
But others have questioned whether the takeover of Southern New England would end up costing the cash-strapped state. Officials at both UMass and Southern New England contend the opposition is being fueled by some of the state’s nine private law schools, which they say are fearful of increased competition for students.
The proposed merger has been endorsed by UMass President Jack M. Wilson. UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Jean F. MacCormack has assembled plans that call for enrollment to climb from 278 students next year to 559 by 2017. Southern New England School of Law would no longer exist.
The bid to open a law school already received the go-ahead from the university’s Committee on Academic and Student Affairs, but it still needs approvals from the university’s Committee on Administration and Finance and the UMass Board of Trustees.
If those boards OK the merger, the Mass. Board of Higher Education will consider the plan in February.
It’s not the first time the merger proposal has surfaced.
Several years ago, a similar plan involving Southern New England was shot down by the Board of Higher Education after it was approved by the university. The two schools had “kept in touch” since then, said UMass Dartmouth spokesman John Hoey.
The schools have joint degree programs, and they have collaborated on research projects. Recently, both schools held a symposium on the law and terrorism. And faculty members from UMass Dartmouth’s forensics department organized sessions on DNA for the Southern New England School of Law students interested in forensic law.
The latest merger plan might be more palatable to state officials. It would allow tuitions to be poured into the state’s general fund – as much as $500,000 next year and up to $1 million annually within five years.
Still, skeptics such as Mass. Treasurer Timothy Cahill, who is running for governor next year as an independent, have argued that a public law school will end up costing taxpayers. Cahill has said the tuition will be set too low to cover education costs, and projected enrollment would add to the price tag.
Hoey says those claims are inaccurate.
Case in point, Hoey said: Southern New England School of Law.
The school, established in 1981, is accredited by both the Massachusetts and New England bar associations, but not by the ABA. The association denied the school’s application in 1997 and 1999.
That lack of accreditation means that graduates aren’t allowed to sit for bar exams in numerous states.
Still, 235 students enrolled, paying the $22,175 annual tuition, and the school’s balance sheet remained in the black.
Furthermore, the school has only about $1.6 million of debt on its building and eight acres on Faunce Corner Road in Dartmouth that were recently appraised at $8.2 million.
Yet the school couldn’t build up enough reserves to meet the ABA accreditation requirements and school leaders “didn’t want to bet the farm” by leveraging their equity on the school property, said Margaret D. Xifaras, chairwoman of the School of Law’s Board of Trustees.
UMass Dartmouth says it would seek provisional accreditation from the ABA in 2011.
“They’re small and independent and were having difficulty moving to the next level,” Hoey said.
UMass Dartmouth’s plans call for the school to use about $2 million in equity on the School of Law property for “targeted investments,” such as adding to the law library’s holdings and improving academic support.
The new law school would set tuition at $23,566 for in-state students, $31,209 for out-of-staters. The in-state rate is $1,391 above Southern New England School of Law’s tuition, but well below what’s projected next year for private schools such as Suffolk University Law School in Boston ($41,528) and Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol ($35,474).
If the proposal is approved, the new law program would enroll students by next fall. The school would start with 13 faculty members and grow to 20 by 2018. •
