WASHINGTON - Critics say it cannot be done. A lackluster law school plagued by dismal bar exam passing rates will not be able to attract students good enough to help it gain national accreditation. Add to that a commitment to educate the underprivileged, often students with less than stellar academic records, and it becomes mission impossible.
But as the University of Massachusetts contemplates undertaking this very challenge, a public law school in Washington, D.C., provides the state with a blueprint for how a school in dire straits can, with years of careful attention, vastly improve its quality while maintaining its focus on the underserved.
The city of Washington launched its public law school in 1988 with a lofty goal: to provide a legal education to minorities underrepresented in the field and empower them to serve their own communities and others in need.
But for years, less than a quarter of its graduates were able to pass the bar exam on their first try, a miserable rate that repeatedly thwarted its chances of gaining national accreditation. With the school on the brink of closing little more than a decade ago, officials at the University of the District of Columbia’s law school made a heart-wrenching decision.