SMU ousts law school dean

[CalallenStang]

Um, you need to go look in the Around the Hilltop forum. Here's a link for you.

viewforum.php?f=8

[PonyKai]

"The elephant in the room of Texas legal education seems to be Texas A&M. Over the summer, Texas A&M announced it is buying Texas Wesleyan Law School, and they intend to be a player in the market. As the Aggies scale up, all of the other Texas law schools have to get ready for some intense competition, both for students and for jobs for their graduates. The Texas market does have jobs to offer, including some very high-paying ones, but we’re still talking about a zero-sum game here, there aren’t enough jobs to go around.

So SMU will need to step up its game to avoid getting run right out of the “number two in Texas” spot. Maybe the SMU brain trust just felt it needed to make a big change to prepare for the storm."

Thought that was pretty important to note too. 14 years and backsliding? Out you go.

[Junior]

wait. the law school is in the forum for general SMU information and not football? strange.

[CalallenStang]

Mike Boone backs the decision to fire Attanasio, and that's good enough for me

[SMU_Alumni11]

I dont know whats going on, but it makes no sense to get rid of him like this. I mean what could he have possibly done? Being arrogant doesnt get you canned, if anything it keeps your position like most professors at our school. The fact they are denying reconsideration after all the prominent alumni requested the contrary of their decision speaks volumes to either: 1) he did a mass murder 2) Turner and the provost are a bunch of clowns. Im going to assume the latter.

[couch 'em]

I dont know whats going on, but it makes no sense to get rid of him like this. I mean what could he have possibly done? Being arrogant doesnt get you canned, if anything it keeps your position like most professors at our school. The fact they are denying reconsideration after all the prominent alumni requested the contrary of their decision speaks volumes to either: 1) he did a mass murder 2) Turner and the provost are a bunch of clowns. Im going to assume the latter.

Above they said the school was headed downhill and now the aggies are stepping up. Sounds like the right choice to me.

Even if you like the guy, those who aren't performing, laws School dean, June Jones, time to discard

[ponyboy]

Well, football and vitriolic campaigns against university presidents.

[Digetydog]

The next 10 years are going to be very difficult for private law schools. Instead of focusing only on rankings, many of them are going to have to make hard decisions about survival and class size. Simply put, the job market for new lawyers is horrible. Furthermore, there is little chance of it improving as law schools crank out thousands of new lawyers every year. In NYC, there are Columbia and NYU grads who are working as paralegals.

While I wanted to stay at SMU for law school, the math was simple: tuition at UT was 1/4 the cost of SMU tuition. With the new Aggie law school in Ft Worth, SMU’s law school is going to have to be on top of things if it wants to thrive.

[PonyKai]

It's not a public private issue most of the time, although it might be in Texas. It's an issue of whether the school is established or not. It's also an issue that tuition hiking isn't pegged to anything reasonably relevant to the real world. Numbers skyrocket seemingly for the hell of it. UVA is a public institution; its in state tuition is about 46,0000$ and it's out of state tuition is about $52,000. Maryland offers $24,000 a year for in-state residents, which is a pretty good bargain; out of state is 36K a tyear. Every school in DC is north of 40,000$ (although they are all private). The mid-80s school I started at costs basically the exact same as the T-14 school I'm at now. The real issue is schools that aren't worth a sh*t (Tier 3, Tier 4) charge in the range of 41-48 thousand a year and people are still willing to pay for it, despite the fact that the market hasn't rebounded with an increase in the number of jobs, at least jobs that give you a meaningful chance to pay off the mountain of debt you've accumulated.

UT is also a hell of a lot better law school then SMU at least based on those arbitrary but oh-so-important rankings. I would pick UT in a second over SMU even if it cost more. They also have a great con law department down there.

[Junior]

They also have a great con law department down there.

They need a good CON law department with all the future cons on their football team...

[Digetydog]

It's not a public private issue most of the time, although it might be in Texas. It's an issue of whether the school is established or not. It's also an issue that tuition hiking isn't pegged to anything reasonably relevant to the real world. Numbers skyrocket seemingly for the hell of it. UVA is a public institution; its in state tuition is about 46,0000$ and it's out of state tuition is about $52,000. Maryland offers $24,000 a year for in-state residents, which is a pretty good bargain; out of state is 36K a tyear. Every school in DC is north of 40,000$ (although they are all private). The mid-80s school I started at costs basically the exact same as the T-14 school I'm at now. The real issue is schools that aren't worth a sh*t (Tier 3, Tier 4) charge in the range of 41-48 thousand a year and people are still willing to pay for it, despite the fact that the market hasn't rebounded with an increase in the number of jobs, at least jobs that give you a meaningful chance to pay off the mountain of debt you've accumulated.

UT is also a hell of a lot better law school then SMU at least based on those arbitrary but oh-so-important rankings. I would pick UT in a second over SMU even if it cost more. They also have a great con law department down there.

Honestly, I think that law school rankings are a complete joke. Unfortunately, they matter.

During grad school, I took a class at Yale's law school. The difference between UT and Yale - Yale essentially doesn't have grades.

When I was at UT, our tuition and fees (including football tickets) was something like $4K per year. It was the bargain of the century.

[gostangs]

but only really good presidents.

[SMU_Alumni11]

I dont know whats going on, but it makes no sense to get rid of him like this. I mean what could he have possibly done? Being arrogant doesnt get you canned, if anything it keeps your position like most professors at our school. The fact they are denying reconsideration after all the prominent alumni requested the contrary of their decision speaks volumes to either: 1) he did a mass murder 2) Turner and the provost are a bunch of clowns. Im going to assume the latter.

Above they said the school was headed downhill and now the aggies are stepping up. Sounds like the right choice to me.

Even if you like the guy, those who aren't performing, laws School dean, June Jones, time to discard

I didn't mean to convey that I support the guy. I just thought timing was bad. Usually you wait to make admin changes more in the summer (at least I figured you would). Now it's the talk of the town and I wonder of the instability will affect applications and/or current students transferring. It's going to be scary with AM at the door step. I think personally that law school is going to get all the non SMU applicants who couldn't get in or afford to go to school. I don't see it as a threat. They took over a very mediocre school. People that I have talk to forgot AM bought that school including aggie friends.

[PonyKai]

The hire will say a lot more than the firing. Transfers will be limited, as only first year students can transfer anyway, and only UT is higher in Texas. Incoming students affected will be minimal, as they're all going to base their decision on location, scholarship amount, and law school rank. If anything, and I'm a current student, I'm happy simply because my school is backsliding and a change has been made at the top with almost a full cycle before the next rankings come out. The [deleted] alumni just show me that they care, they're invested, and they probably do everything they can to hire fellow grads. That makes me feel better, not worse.

[ObeyMyDog]

He needed to go. There are a lot of factors, but this is the right move. Attanasio is a con law nut and he either stopped (or never did, I can't remember or say for sure) harness the law school's inherent advantages to the fullest. I know almost all the legal market related numbers are awful and all deans are challenged right now but it was over for him.

It is really great to have Ruth Bader Ginsburg come and speak at the school on paper, and really interesting and all of that; but in the end it does little to nothing to accomplish the bottom line: maintain tier 1 status as a law school by getting students jobs and maintaining a top tier faculty. It certainly doesn't hurt, but neglecting other things we could be doing and concerning ourselves with judges putting on a riveting panel discussion is the opposite of what I think the law school should be doing.

If they don't bring in a corporate law minded guy I will be so confused. Dallas provides SMU one of the best possible general corporate law markets in the country and not squeezing every lost drop out of that is crazy. I get things are bad now, and Ivy leaguers are coming in and taking jobs and it is just generally crappy, but Attanasio is always going to be the way he is. SMU law could realistically be challenging Texas as the go-to law school for potential business minded law students.

No need to discuss Baylor unless you want to litigate, no matter what it is ranked everyone knows they are a litigation law school which makes themselves feel important and special by absolutely torturing the students with work load and teaching style