The financial model of most law schools has been subject to
extensive criticism recently. Many
commentators insist that high tuition is subsidizing professors who write
little, write little of importance, or, write little of importance for “practice-ready”
lawyers. Whatever merits the model had in the past, the way in which law
schools operate is no longer viable in light of a shrinking job market,
shrinking applications and the need for more scholarships. Prominent bloggers insist that when law
school deans beg university presidents for finance support, those presidents should
insist as a condition of support the dramatic revamping of the law school
curriculum and a serious rethinking of the place of scholarship at the law school.
Several
conversations with colleagues at the 2013 annual meeting of the Law and
Society Association suggest that depicting law school deans as begging for substantial financial "support" from the broader university is seriously misleading. Most universities insist that the law school turn over a significant percentage of tuition revenue. The ABA recommends that universities take no more than 20% of tuition revenue, but that is a recommendation only and as universities have been in financial crisis, many have demanded an increasingly higher percentage of law school tuition revenue. This means that at a great many universities, law school
tuition does not simply subsidize scholarship.
Instead, revenue from the law school subsidies the women’s field hockey
team, the opera workshop, scholarships for graduate students in classics, and
several research projects in the medical school. We are told by the powers to be that the tax
on our tuition is paid by all units on campus and all units benefit to some
degree from the central spending.
Nevertheless, my conversations with law professors from other institutions suggests substantial concerns with both the method by which contributions to
the central administration are calculated and the method by which general
benefits are distributed. Many law schools seem to be in the position of rural communities forced to pay a state-wide tax on cows that is used primarily to pay for mass transit.
Recent
conditions will put law school finances under considerable stress and many
internal practices will no doubt have to be adjusted as many of institutions lower class size and increase scholarships.
Still, relationships between the law school and broader university community ought to be described accurately. At least in the cases I know, no one is asking for financial support from the university community. Rather, I suspect more law school deans are merely asking that in light of new financial realities, law schools be permitted to reduce the extent to which law school tuition supports and subsidizes other university activities.