Does Delaware Need Another Law School? Answer: No!

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Francis Pileggi

Readers of this blog are likely aware that the population of the entire State of Delaware is much less than one million residents, which is smaller than most major cities. Delaware has one law school withing its borders and about 5 more within a short driving distance to nearby Philadelphia and the surrounding area. Yet the University of Delaware has indicated that it is considering the opening of another law school. Perhaps they are not aware of the complaints by law school graduates from schools around the country about how difficult it is for many of them to find jobs that pay enough to service student loans. Are they aware of learned commentary, such as the professorial insights available here and here, about the changing legal profession?

One of the suggestions the U of D has presented to advance its consideration of a second law school in Delaware is that their new "moneymaker" would be an "elite law school". Rebutting that suggestion, with surgical precision and compelling reasoning, is an article by Ed Micheletti, a partner in the Wilmington, Delaware, office of the Skadden Arps firm, available here. Ed is a distinguished graduate of Delaware’s only law school: Widener University School of Law. As Ed’s partnership status indicates, Widener’s graduates are represented in the largest firms in the country and all the major firms in Delaware. A letter from Dean Linda Ammons, available here, also makes the case along with supporting statistics. Isn’t the lack of a need for more law schools and more lawyers, self-evident? Comments are welcomed.

Postscript: Professor Stephen Bainbridge honors us by quoting from this post and adding his own commentary here. Professor Larry Ribstein, who has published extensive scholarship on this topic, graciously links to this post and adds his expert commentary here. Prof. Gary Rosin posts about this story here, with a quote from the U of D President’s letter describing the reasons why the U of D commissioned a feasibility study to consider a new law school. Plus, the famed blog called Above The Law, as part of its highlights on March 10, links to this post here.

  • AJ

    I think it makes sense for a state to have at least one law school within its state university system. And since they’re thought of as cash cows, its hard to stop them. Perhaps the Univ. of Delaware should look into acquiring Widener?

  • http://www.litigationandtrial.com Max Kennerly

    There are already too many law schools nationwide producing too many graduates with too much debt for few available jobs, many of which don’t pay enough to justify that debt.
    Making it worse, the Philadelphia area is already loaded with law schools, and just opened up another one at Drexel.
    Although law schools, even bad ones, are moneymakers, I think it’s misleading for anyone to claim that they can simply create an “elite” law school out of whole cloth. I highly doubt that U of D could suddenly create a law school that outranked Widener, a school which, IMHO, produces perfectly able students.

  • Francis

    In reply to the first commenter that referred to the “state university system”, my understanding is that the Univ. of Del. is not a “state-school” nor is it part of a “state university system”, although they do receive some funding from the state. Ironically, U of D declined the offer to affiliate with what was then called the Delaware Law School about 40 years ago before Widener “acquired it”.

  • http://www.glomarization.com/ Glomarization

    The University of Delaware is a state-funded, land-grant university, but unusually it is privately chartered. There’s no state university “system” in Delaware as there is in, say, California; however, U of D has more than one campus in various locations around the state.
    As someone who got her undergrad degree from U of D in 199x, and who got her law degree in a Philadelphia area law school in 2009 and is currently underemployed in Philadelphia, I heartily agree with the suggestion that U of D should seek to acquire Widener rather than start up its own law school. It’s too bad that they declined to affiliate 40 years ago. But I would hope that they haven’t dismissed that possibility entirely, based on that old decision. A lot has changed in Delaware, the regional law school situation, and the legal profession since 1970. If U of D must have a law school — a premise that I don’t necessarily agree with — then I hope they would re-open the question of affiliating with or acquiring Widener.