ABA study found little fault with Mass. law school

The American Bar Association denied accreditation to Southern New England School of Law five years ago largely because of the low academic standing of its students and found no major shortcomings in the tiny school's facilities or faculty, according to accreditation reports obtained by the Globe.

Leaders of the University of Massachusetts, who plan to vote Tuesday on the acquisition of the private Dartmouth law school, have said it would cost less than $1 million to meet accreditation standards -- costs the law school could shoulder on its own without tapping public funds. Critics of the project, including leaders of some competing private law schools, have said it would cost $40 million or more for the new school to meet ABA standards.

The accreditation reports, which date from Southern New England's two attempts to win ABA approval in 1997 and 1999, paint a picture of an up-and-coming campus that rapidly made major changes to strengthen its program between the two site visits. And while the documents include no financial estimates for recommended improvements, the findings suggest accreditation would cost less than $40 million.

"It's not wrong to say that it costs $20 million to start a law school, but we've already done that," Robert V. Ward Jr., Southern New England dean, said in an interview.

Some observers of the proposal argue that the five-year-old report is too old to be an accurate reflection of the school's current quality.

The site team that visited the law school most recently in January 1999 found it "well organized and administered," with "financially stable" operations and a facility "maintained in excellent condition," according to its report. The library was deemed to contain "the requisite core collection," and the school was found to have made significant progress in reducing the proportion of courses taught by part-time instructors, while increasing the number of scholarly articles published by professors. To correct another failing, the school added a law clinic after the first site review to give students more hands-on experience.

The accreditation committee that reviewed the second site report and recommended against accreditation in November 1999 cited three reasons for its decision: Southern New England's inadequate financial resources; the below-standard scholastic achievement of its students; and its admission of students "who do not appear capable of being admitted to the bar."

UMass officials contend that the law school has solved its financial problems, and say all that remains is to attract and retain more high-achieving students -- a change they predict will happen quickly if the school joins the well-known state university. They point to Southern New England's $350,000 operating surplus in fiscal 2005 and its $1.5 million "rainy day" fund as evidence of its progress, and say it could boost yearly revenues by as much as $4 million by expanding its enrollment from 260 to 450.

Critics say the law school spent less on its programs last year than it did five years ago -- an indication, they say, that money remains a barrier to accreditation.

One person currently involved with the ABA accreditation process, who is not affiliated with any Massachusetts law school, said on the condition of anonymity that data in a five-year-old accreditation report should be considered "stale," because conditions could have changed significantly, either improving or declining.

But Ward, the Southern New England dean, said the school is better now than it was five years ago, with more staff devoted to career services and academic support.

Much of the accreditation debate has concerned the size of the faculty at Southern New England, which currently has 14 full-time professors, said Ward.

Arthur Gaudio, dean of Western New England School of Law in Springfield, a critic of the UMass plan and a former consultant to the bar association at the time of Southern New England's 1997 review, said the new public law school would have to add 10 or 15 professors to meet accreditation standards for its target enrollment of 450 students.

The ABA website suggests a 20-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio is used as a guideline for approval. Southern New England currently meets that standard, with 262 students, and would have to hire eight professors to maintain the ratio while adding 200 students.

If those new hires were paid $100,000 each, they would cost less than $1 million a year -- a cost easily covered by the addition of 50 more students paying $20,000 a year in tuition, said John Hoey, a spokesman for UMass-Dartmouth. Gaudio said he is not concerned about losing students to the new law school. "Only 32 percent of our students are from Massachusetts," he said.

If the merger wins approval as expected Tuesday from the UMass board, it would go before the state Board of Higher Education for review. If OK'd, Hoey said, UMass would seek accreditation from the ABA in two or three years.

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.