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The University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law received provisional accreditation from the American Bar Association on June 3, less than a year after it was denied such accreditation. The approval comes at an opportune moment for the law school’s inaugural class. The 74 graduates who participated in the first Juris Doctor hooding ceremony on May 20, will now be considered graduates of an ABA-accredited law school when their degrees are conferred later this month. Most importantly, those graduates will be eligible to sit for the July 2017 Texas Bar Exam. “Our goal has always been to equip graduates with practice-ready competencies and the practical knowledge to pass the Texas Bar Exam,” said Royal Furgeson, founding Dean and President of UNT Dallas College of Law. “We now have a clear path to demonstrate that the innovative curriculum and the resources we’ve established will support exactly that kind of success.” The provisional accreditation is a big victory for the state school, but comes with some compromises. In August, the accreditation committee denied approval due to concerns with the school’s low admission standards and uncertain financial future. UNT Dallas had deemphasized LSAT scores in the admissions process in an effort to attract a more diverse student body. But to get accreditation, it had raise its LSAT profile. The law school elevated the 25th percentile LSAT score from 143 to 147 by requiring a supermajority of its admissions committee to approve admission for any students who scored less than 142 on the LSAT. The UNT Dallas Board of Regents also stepped in to support the law school, bolstering its financial reserves from $3 million to $6 million, Furgeson said. “The ABA process has strengthened our law school and made us a better law school,” Furgeson said. “The first rejection was challenging to work through, but it highlighted our weaknesses, and we made adjustments to make us better.” read more: http://www.nationaljurist.com/national-jurist-magazine/unt-dallas-gets-aba-accreditation-after-raising-lsat-scores

A Long Path It took 10 years to persuade lawmakers to authorize another public law school. Finally, the Texas Legislature in 2009 voted to approve a new public law school and provide $5 million in startup funds. UNT Dallas in 2014 welcomed 153 students when it opened with a lofty mission: to broaden access to a legal education by keeping tuition low and admitting students whom other law schools might pass over. UNT Dallas wanted to create lawyers who were diverse in race and ethnicity, age, professional experience and socioeconomic background. Flipped: Today, 51.4 percent of UNT Law students are minorities, and 54.3 percent are women. Seeking ABA accreditation is critical to UNT Law becoming fully established in Texas. Without accreditation, students can't sit for the bar exam and become lawyers. The first blow in the accreditation battle came in June 2016. The accreditation committee of the ABA's education section recommended against granting provisional accreditation. It had questions about the school's finances and found the school to be out of compliance with a rule requiring law schools to maintain "sound admission policies and practices," noting that it has fallen short of the median 150 LSAT goal set out by the university regents. The school's median LSAT in 2015 was 146. The bottom 25 percent of students who entered in Fall 2015 had an LSAT score of 143. But UNT Law officials made their case to the ABA education section's council in October, and the council in November sent the matter back to the accreditation committee for further study. The council noted that a fact-finder must visit the school, verify new evidence and review the school's plan to address the problems with admissions and finances. The additional fact finding might happen early in the spring 2017 semester. ABA spokesman Bill Choyke declined to comment about UNT Dallas' accreditation journey. Change Coming Furgeson reflected on the reasons his school "stumbled out of the starting blocks" in its quest for accreditation. He said when it began the process, the ABA was changing how it assesses law schools. It wasn't clear the organization would put so much emphasis on admissions and LSAT scores. UNT Law was paying attention and emulating other trends emerging from the ABA—a standard for law school classes to have multiple assessments, a goal to make tuition and costs more affordable and an idea that LSAT scores shouldn't be the only factor in admissions, explained Furgeson. He said the school used different criteria in admissions and wasn't as prepared as it should have been for the ABA's emphasis on LSAT scores. The national law school applicant pool has declined in size and quality, and the ABA has grown concerned that law schools are admitting weak students to keep enrollment up. The organization in summer 2016 also faced criticism from an advisory committee of the U.S. Department of Education for lax oversight of law schools and scant enforcement of its rules. "I'm trying to read the tea leaves, and I think the tea leaves are: The ABA is very worried about bar passage," Furgeson said. "We're just going to have to work harder at the admissions process and really put a great deal more focus on it." Furgeson said the school has created a matrix of 11 factors to give an extraordinary review to people who score in the low 140s on the LSAT or applicants who have been disqualified from another law school. The school will still consider them, if they had rigorous undergraduate studies, significant work experience, faced adversity or hardship, served in the military and other factors. Their admission will now require a super-majority vote of the UNT Law admissions committee, Furgeson noted. Regarding the ABA committee's concern about UNT Law's finances, Furgeson said the school purposely set tuition low, with the plan to raise it by 4 percent per year until it tops out at $17,000. That's going to stay the same. The school always exceeded its goal to enroll 120 new students per year. Read more: http://www.texaslawyer.com/id=1202776939164/UNT-Law-Hangs-on-to-Accreditation-Hopes?mcode=1202616608548&curindex=0&curpage=2

Dallas' first public law school, in the heart of downtown, remains at risk of not being accredited by the American Bar Association. But that isn't stopping UNT Dallas College of Law from proceeding with long-standing plans to buy the old Municipal Building from the city. On Monday morning, Lee Jackson, chancellor of the University of North Texas System, went to Dallas City Hall to outline its purchase plans for the 103-year-old landmark, which served as the city's fourth city hall until 1978. UNT plans to renovate the building, which is across the street from Main Street Garden, using $56 million in tuition revenue bonds approved by the state Legislature last year. The city agreed to turn the building over to UNT at no cost but with an agreement that the historic structure be restored. UNT first expressed interest in the old muni building a decade ago, and the City Council has repeatedly passed resolutions in support of planting a law school downtown. There was just one problem: Until it received the Legislature's blessings, UNT didn't have the money to make its dream tangible. In the interim, the city is spending some $14 million in bond money to rehab the building's exterior, especially a rotting roof, and other pieces of the Beaux Arts building gone to seed because of deferred maintenance. read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/news/2016/09/26/despite-accreditation-woes-unt-ready-buy-historic-city-hall-downtown-dallas-law-school

DALLAS — In August 2014, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht stood before the incoming students of the state’s newest law school and made a proclamation: “The legal profession needs you.” Yes, there were 95,000 licensed lawyers in Texas — more twice the number of doctors in the state, he said. And yes, many firms were cutting back on hiring, making job prospects dim. But millions of poor and middle class Texans needed legal help, and not enough lawyers were working to provide it, he said. The University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law could change that. “We have every hope that what happens here can begin to narrow the justice gap and change our profession for the better,” Hecht said at the school’s inaugural convocation. The school was built with those goals in mind, and it has flouted many of the conventions of traditional law schools. It has targeted diverse, working-class students, who seem serious about lives in public service. And it has avoided worrying about building up its national ranking. But two years after Hecht’s speech — and before the 150 students who heard it have even graduated — the goal is at risk. Citing the school’s admissions policies and worries over financial stability, the American Bar Association has recommended that the law school not be accredited. If that happens, the law school's hundreds of students may not be able to practice as lawyers in Texas when they graduate. The decision has created an existential crisis for the school. UNT-Dallas’ backers had been optimistic that it was on its way toward building something special. But now it has been caught in a regulatory process designed to prevent schools from preying on unqualified students. In a painful twist, the system that it hoped to change may bring the school down before it gets fully up and running. “I feel like we are being judged by a different template,” said Royal Furgeson, the school’s inaugural dean. “I kind of feel like we are being pigeonholed into a category where we don’t belong. And I don’t know what to do about it.” read more: http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/dallas-county/how-unt-dallas-grand-law-school-experiment-could-be-overruled/305837905

Its all happening in downtown Dallas, at the first public law school in North Texas. Were basically a North Texas law school, Royal Furgeson, founding dean of the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law, was quick to point out. We dont angle or aspire to be a statewide or even regional law school. What the law school does want, however, is to stand out, to bring new energy and faces into a legal profession that, particularly in Dallas County, is notorious for its dearth of women and minorities at major firms. Its definitely off to a great start, with impressive enrollment statistics for an as-yet unaccredited first-year law school. More than 600 students applied, about four in 10 were offered admission, and 25 percent (153) enrolled. Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnists/james-ragland/20150206-with-no-alumni-first-year-north-texas-law-school-scouts-mentors.ece