UNT law school

wardly · July 5, 2012

so its been open 6 years. time flys when you turn 69. thanks for update, Ward White

UNTLifer · July 5, 2012

it has been open since 2006

When was the last time you came up out of the basement and saw the light of day?

wardly · July 15, 2012

daylight, like fellowship, is overated. as a vampire the light burns my eyes. hence the 6 year time lapse regarding the opening of A&M's new drug store. i just slept thru it.wake me when we get ours.

UNTLifer · July 15, 2012

daylight, like fellowship, is overated. as a vampire the light burns my eyes. hence the 6 year time lapse regarding the opening of A&M's new drug store. i just slept thru it.wake me when we get ours.

Sorry, my question was posed to GL2G.

UNT90 · July 16, 2012

He needs some poon.

The next time would be the first time...

russell360 · July 17, 2012

Ad hominem attack: Attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument....

GrayEagle · July 17, 2012

Has anyone seen anything to make you think that there won't be a public law school in Dallas? There have already been millions spent toward it. There is a facility and a founding dean already in place. A law library is underway. All legislation has been passed. A starting date has been set.

Yes, we have a crappy economy that appears to be getting worse. But, lawyers seem to have fewer employment problems than the general workforce. It is my understanding that the main focus of this law school is for lawyers in the public sector. Every facet of government is facing lawsuits. Cities, counties, state education, and the various commissions and districts will need replacements for retiring lawyers. They need attorneys to research many things that they do to make sure that they are legal and to defend them against plaintiffs who feel that they have been wronged.

Dallas County has more than 2.5 million people and no public law school. It is likely the largest county in the nation with that profile. There are a number of items that I don't like about the UNT Dallas College of Law but we are in too far now to turn around. Idle projects are also harmful to the economy in that they produce no jobs. If the law school can be self-sufficient then it's a plus.

Edited July 17, 2012 by GrayEagle

GL2Greatness · July 18, 2012

Has anyone seen anything to make you think that there won't be a public law school in Dallas? There have already been millions spent toward it. There is a facility and a founding dean already in place. A law library is underway. All legislation has been passed. A starting date has been set.

Yes, we have a crappy economy that appears to be getting worse. But, lawyers seem to have fewer employment problems than the general workforce. It is my understanding that the main focus of this law school is for lawyers in the public sector. Every facet of government is facing lawsuits. Cities, counties, state education, and the various commissions and districts will need replacements for retiring lawyers. They need attorneys to research many things that they do to make sure that they are legal and to defend them against plaintiffs who feel that they have been wronged.

Dallas County has more than 2.5 million people and no public law school. It is likely the largest county in the nation with that profile. There are a number of items that I don't like about the UNT Dallas College of Law but we are in too far now to turn around. Idle projects are also harmful to the economy in that they produce no jobs. If the law school can be self-sufficient then it's a plus.

other than the fact that there has been no funding for an actual building or renovations to either of the two proposed sites for the building

there have been no faculty or staff hired

there has been no money to hire faculty or staff

I have seen no evidence of renovations to the upper floors of the UCD and there is no money for those renovations

dallas has started exterior renovations of the old muny building, but they have welched on the other half of the money they were going to provide to help interior renovations and there is no time table for them to provide that money

the dean does not start his job April 2013 and the "scheduled opening" is August 2014 (well that is the new scheduled opening after several of the others were pushed back because no state funding).......that is just over a year to get buildings in place, get the actual materials for a library, get a staff, and hire faculty......when few if any faculty will be willing to leave their current position where they are probably already tenured and assured of employment......much less for any faculty that are not currently teaching law classes to make up course materials

you need to get all the faculty and staff in place, the management software, the library, and then you actually need to sort through applicants (which probably will not be too difficult since "have pulse" (and brain dead enough to apply to new low tier non-accredited law school) will probably be most of it)

you need to be in the position to jump right on accreditation so that you do not leave students with degrees that are not accredited which makes that degree worthless especially in Texas where accreditation is required to take the bar (see the unT college of engineering for an example or two of this with the ABET)

the legislature will not be finished with budget sessions to actually fund the school until sometime in late 2013......so the school will not even know if it is funded until late 2013 which will leave less than a year to recruit faculty and staff and then admit students

most faculty will already have been committed to their current position by that time even if they were dumb enough to leave it for a new non-accredited law school

there has been no evidence of UCD students actually being displaced from the current UCD building which would be against an agreement that unT made when they purchased the building and I can see the unT system waiting until the last minute and then screwing those students by canceling classes and or making them take place at times that were not going to work for anyone, but I can't see the TAMU or the UT system doing that so I would think if there were going to be students displaced from the UCD there would be stories about it and or efforts by the TAMU and UT systems to make sure to find a place for those students with plenty of time to spare

so other than total lack of funding and total lack of actual progress towards a building or faculty or staff no I can't see any reason it will not open in 2014......that is if it actually gets funded in the 2013 budget session and since TAMU is friendly with the governor and TAMU just made a large law school purchase funded by private money from many of their large powerful donors just a few miles down the road in Fort Worth I would think they would probably be in the know that the funding was not going to come in 2013 and the idea will probably be canned once and for all because the only thing worse than stalled projects is wasting money to move projects forward when they were never needed, were a bad idea to start with, and they carry large expenses forward for ever......for a "benefit" that is not needed and of no use

and since unT-dallas struggles with their own enrollment and they will probably struggle with accreditation for the university itself (because they have already been shown to be poorly run) it is an even worse idea to tie a law school to that school especially when it might mean the unneeded law school would possibly face going through accreditation two times as outlined in the THECB report that was against even considering the law school in the first place much less tying it to the dallas campus

Edited July 18, 2012 by GL2Greatness

CMJ · July 18, 2012

GreenMachine · July 18, 2012

other than the fact that there has been no funding for an actual building or renovations to either of the two proposed sites for the building

there have been no faculty or staff hired

there has been no money to hire faculty or staff

I have seen no evidence of renovations to the upper floors of the UCD and there is no money for those renovations

dallas has started exterior renovations of the old muny building, but they have welched on the other half of the money they were going to provide to help interior renovations and there is no time table for them to provide that money

the dean does not start his job April 2013 and the "scheduled opening" is August 2014 (well that is the new scheduled opening after several of the others were pushed back because no state funding).......that is just over a year to get buildings in place, get the actual materials for a library, get a staff, and hire faculty......when few if any faculty will be willing to leave their current position where they are probably already tenured and assured of employment......much less for any faculty that are not currently teaching law classes to make up course materials

you need to get all the faculty and staff in place, the management software, the library, and then you actually need to sort through applicants (which probably will not be too difficult since "have pulse" (and brain dead enough to apply to new low tier non-accredited law school) will probably be most of it)

you need to be in the position to jump right on accreditation so that you do not leave students with degrees that are not accredited which makes that degree worthless especially in Texas where accreditation is required to take the bar (see the unT college of engineering for an example or two of this with the ABET)

the legislature will not be finished with budget sessions to actually fund the school until sometime in late 2013......so the school will not even know if it is funded until late 2013 which will leave less than a year to recruit faculty and staff and then admit students

most faculty will already have been committed to their current position by that time even if they were dumb enough to leave it for a new non-accredited law school

there has been no evidence of UCD students actually being displaced from the current UCD building which would be against an agreement that unT made when they purchased the building and I can see the unT system waiting until the last minute and then screwing those students by canceling classes and or making them take place at times that were not going to work for anyone, but I can't see the TAMU or the UT system doing that so I would think if there were going to be students displaced from the UCD there would be stories about it and or efforts by the TAMU and UT systems to make sure to find a place for those students with plenty of time to spare

so other than total lack of funding and total lack of actual progress towards a building or faculty or staff no I can't see any reason it will not open in 2014......that is if it actually gets funded in the 2013 budget session and since TAMU is friendly with the governor and TAMU just made a large law school purchase funded by private money from many of their large powerful donors just a few miles down the road in Fort Worth I would think they would probably be in the know that the funding was not going to come in 2013 and the idea will probably be canned once and for all because the only thing worse than stalled projects is wasting money to move projects forward when they were never needed, were a bad idea to start with, and they carry large expenses forward for ever......for a "benefit" that is not needed and of no use

and since unT-dallas struggles with their own enrollment and they will probably struggle with accreditation for the university itself (because they have already been shown to be poorly run) it is an even worse idea to tie a law school to that school especially when it might mean the unneeded law school would possibly face going through accreditation two times as outlined in the THECB report that was against even considering the law school in the first place much less tying it to the dallas campus