Law school studies expansion but medical funding has priority

Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2006 | 7:03 a.m.

UNLV Boyd School of Law officials want to expand its legal services into Northern Nevada - a proposal that puts them in competition with other higher education programs on the hunt for more money from state legislators.

The $6.7 million sought by the law school fits a long-term mission of the university to serve the entire state, said university system Chancellor Jim Rogers, who asked law school Dean Richard Morgan to come up with the proposal.

But Rogers says the school's expansion goals aren't as important as other higher education priorities, including expanding the University of Nevada School of Medicine, increasing the number of nurses in the state or starting a School of Pharmacy.

If it comes down to educating more doctors versus more lawyers, Rogers said doctors will prevail. But at the least, Rogers, Morgan and UNLV President David Ashley want to place the law school's expansion goals in front of lawmakers as they budget for the next biennium.

"We don't want to compete," Morgan said. "What we would hope is that the pie would be big enough to fund all of the opportunities. If it is not, we are not looking to gore anybody's ox with this program."

Since the law school's inception in 1997, it has aspired to serve the entire state. Initially, it had hoped to offer distance education classes in Reno using teleconferencing technology, but the school's accrediting agency, the American Bar Association, placed a limit on how many distance education units a student can take, Morgan said.

The proposal to offer classes in Reno was postponed as Morgan, the school's founding dean, focused on building the Las Vegas campus.

Under this new plan, students would be able to take their third year of classes in Reno with faculty based there, as well as some classes in Las Vegas through teleconferencing. The Center for Law and Policy would include a legal clinic to serve the Reno community, and professors would focus their research efforts on public policy initiatives under consideration by the Legislature, such as researching immigration, water rights or public land issues.

The center would work with UNR's Grant Sawyer Center for Justice Studies, the National Judicial College and the National Council for Juvenile and Family Court Judges - all based in Reno. The Nevada System of Higher Education is working on a private-public partnership to build a facility for these entities on the UNR campus.

The third-year program in Reno, which would accommodate up to 30 students, also would focus on enticing students into public service after they graduate, and provide scholarships for 15 of them.

"We hope it will attract some of our best students" into public service, Morgan said.

The law school, which serves about 475 students, would also use the expansion to increase on-the-job training opportunities for its students in the Legislature and the Reno area, Morgan said.

UNLV needs approval of the Board of Regents to take the funding request to state lawmakers. Morgan hopes to bring the proposal to regents in January.

Regent Chairman Bret Whipple said among the questions surrounding the proposal is whether the American Bar Association would sign off on the plan.

"If (it doesn't) agree to do it, then we can't do it," said Whipple, one of three lawyers on the 13-member board.

The system's main priority in the 2007 Legislature is neither doctors nor lawyers but basic operational funding for all eight schools, administrators say. Because of a smaller than expected enrollment growth, UNR, UNLV and the Community College of Southern Nevada could lose millions of dollars in funding. Rogers wants legislators to increase the percentage of funding the campuses receive, even though expenditures in the upcoming biennial budget will be limited by a spending cap.