Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Husson College of Law?

There has been healthy debate about the desirability of multiple law schools in Maine. The Husson College proposal to open a non-accredited law school in Bangor is of great interest. We've heard a lot of pro's and con's. Do you have any opinion?
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2 comments:

D'Poser said...

I must admit that I didn't read the link in the original post but does anybody know what this unaccredited education would cost? I suppose I'm all for it if their students will actually be able to make enough $ in Northern Maine to be able to pay off their loans. Did anyone see the Law Court argument on whether they'd be able to take the bar exam? I'm curious to know how it went.

April 23, 2008 at 11:50 AM
Justin B Weiss said...

Isn't there a consumer protection component here too? Lawyer minimal competence as a gateway matter is supposed to be ensured by (1) law school graduation or appropriate equivalent, and (2) bar exam passage. Do we think that the Maine bar exam is strong enough to do the heavy lifting to separate the competent from the not-yet-competent practitioner? It seems like having ABA accreditation supplements the bar exam by providing a preliminary competency review process. A non-accreditated law school might put more burden on the Board of Bar Examiners to get that exam to reproduce some of the wheat and chaff separating that goes on at an ABA-accredited school. Maybe this assumption is totally flawed. I admit that I don't know the reason Husson doesn't want to seek accreditation - cost? I know having an adequate library to meet the ABA standard is very expensive in and of itself. If all else but the availability of stacks and stacks of unused books is comparable to an ABA-accredited law school, then maybe my concern is unfounded. So much legal research happens online these days anyway, some of the ABA requirements may be aging. . .

April 25, 2008 at 9:00 AM

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