College of Law in Boise
The University of Idaho has the statewide mission to deliver public legal education. The mission is carried out by the College of Law, which will mark its centennial in 2009 and is planning for its second century.The increases in Idaho’s population and growth in the economy have far outpaced the state’s investment in legal education. The population has doubled since the college’s size and enrollment capacity were determined in 1972-73, when the Menard Law Building was constructed on the Moscow campus. The state’s economy and government have more than doubled, and the Treasure Valley has become a major metropolitan center.
Lawyers serve the state in many ways including economic development. Idaho has a growing need for legal expertise to support a growing economy, the administration of criminal and civil justice, and the services needed by Idaho families. At the same time, legal education is changing due to globalization, specialization, rising demand for practice-ready graduates, and increased use of law degrees in business and other occupations. Law school is no longer simply a gateway to the practice of law.
Idaho is a net importer of legal talent; it produces fewer law graduates than is adequate to meet the need in this state and surrounding region. (Other regions of the country do not have this deficit. Questions about the number of law schools in the United States have focused on those regions.) Surveys show that the two-location law school would appeal to a significantly larger group of prospective law students. For that reason, expanded legal education opportunities do not correlate directly to numbers of practitioners. Employment prospects are strong.
Affordable public legal education enables graduates to take jobs in Idaho communities or in the public and nonprofit sectors. It keeps legal services and justice accessible for people of ordinary means.
The College of Law is, and should remain, rooted in Moscow; however, it cannot remain competitive, nor can it fully serve the state, if it remains solely in Moscow. The legal education program would be enhanced, and the state’s century long investment in the College of Law in Moscow would be secured, by linking the college’s land grant location with a metropolitan location. In addition, faculty scholarship, service to the state, and community outreach would increase.
The college’s planning consultant has strongly recommended a single statewide law school with efficient, unified administration and curricular design, providing two places of opportunity: Moscow and Boise. Moscow will remain the center of law school administration. The Law Advisory Council unanimously has embraced this concept. The concept has been adopted by the law faculty and endorsed by the university leadership. This is a long-term response to Idaho’s needs. It is not a transitional mechanism for moving the college.
In the two-location framework, delivery of Juris Doctor (J.D.) education, faculty scholarship, service, and community outreach would be developed in steps according to a time line contained in the plan. The time line will reflect a faculty commitment to academic quality, the depth of the qualified student applicant pool, accreditation standards (to be met and exceeded), the costs of each step, and the resources available from the state legislature and governor, private supporters, and student fees, as well as grants and contracts.
Initial steps would begin in 2009 with augmentation of classroom components of existing Boise-based externships, the semester-in-practice program, and the college’s small business legal clinic. In the future, the College of Law would enroll an initial first-year class of approximately 30 students in Boise. The size of each entering class in Boise would increase gradually until it reached approximately 85 students, creating a total student body in Boise of approximately 250. Enrollment at Moscow would be managed to converge at approximately the same level, creating a balance of faculty and students at each location while settling and sustaining the student body in Moscow at the approximate level contemplated when the Menard Law Building was constructed. Admissions would be a unified process, administered in Moscow, with the college determining where entering students would begin their studies.
The two-location law school would deliver a core J.D. program at both locations, with customary “bar course” coverage at both locations. (Such courses are often taught to multiple sections of students, by multiple professors, at larger law schools.) In addition, however, the two-location school would feature distinctive and complementary specialties at each location. Emphases in Moscow would take advantage of the land grant campus and would include natural resources, environmental law, public lands, and federal/state tribal relations. Emphases in Boise would take advantage of the metropolitan location and would include business-related specialties, entrepreneurship, and intellectual property.
In Boise, collaboration with the Idaho Supreme Court on a multipurpose physical facility — the “Idaho Law Learning Center” (ILLC) — offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for synergy and efficiency. The Learning Center would house a greatly improved State Law Library — an asset to the general public as well as the legal profession — and would serve as a location for collaboration among the branches of government and as well as for public educational outreach on the rule of law in a democratic society. The Idaho Law Learning Center would be nationally distinctive and would be designed to accommodate a long-term maximum of approximately 250 students. Renovation and expansion of the Capitol Annex (old Ada County Courthouse), situated on the Capitol Mall directly between the Supreme Court and the Idaho Statehouse, is the leading ILLC possibility. The college could begin to occupy portions of it, when the initial, modestly sized entering class is enrolled, and could occupy it more fully in phases as the building is renovated and expanded.
Meanwhile, upgrades of the Menard Law Building, and a modest expansion of its footprint, would make it vital and attractive for current methods of law teaching, research, and service, while assuring that it could continue to serve as the administrative center of the statewide law school. During the past three years the College of Law has already spent or committed more than $2 million on improvements to the Menard Law Building to the furniture, fixtures, and equipment within it.
The eight-year span (Fiscal Year 2009 to FY 2017) of this implementation plan and budget projection reflects a careful, conservative estimate of a realistically expeditious time frame for developing the academic program and the statewide student enrollment while maintaining our commitment to quality. After FY17, the stable level of student enrollment and the programmatic advantages of the two-location operation are expected to make the law school increasingly attractive and even more selective and competitive.
As reflected in the detailed budget spreadsheets appended to this plan, the establishment of the statewide law school with two locations would entail an investment of approximately $6 million in the recurring operating budget of the college, which now stands at approximately $8 million. Of this $6 million, about $3.4 million would come from legislative appropriations; the remainder would come from student fees, private giving, and grants and contracts. Student fees are projected to increase approximately 2% above inflation after the current five-year plan for fee adjustments is completed in FY 2011.
As further reflected in the budget spreadsheets, the college’s collaboration with the Idaho Supreme Court would include joining the court in the one-time appropriation request of approximately $29-30 million for the Idaho Law Learning Center, plus a continuing appropriation of $660,000 for occupancy costs related to legal education in the Idaho Law Learning Center. Investments in furniture, fixtures, technology, and other building improvements in Moscow as well as Boise would be made on a pay-as-you-go basis with net funds generated in the operating budget. The operating and capital budgets are conservative; they represent cost-effective investments in a multipurpose expansion of legal education to meet the growing needs facing the state of Idaho as the College of Law enters its second century.
By FY 2017, the statewide legal education program would be fully in place with a law school that is not merely larger, but also a state that is more fully served.