Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Brian E.J. Martin, a 2010 graduate of Vermont Law School and a member of the Vermont Law School Alumni Association Board of Directors. He is the sole author of this op-ed and writes on his own independent behalf.
Next month marks the one-year anniversary of President and Dean Marc Mihaly’s tenure as the leader of Vermont Law School. Mihaly accepted the deanship during an unsettling moment in both law school academia and in the legal profession more broadly.
The economy for new lawyers has especially been rough for half a decade. According to American Bar Association (ABA) projections, law schools have been hit particularly hard; this winter, the ABA projected that there will be as much as 38 percent fewer J.D. applicants this year than in 2010. According to the ABA, 2013 looks to have the fewest first-year law students in 30 years. VLS, which generally enrolled around 170 or 175 first-year students during the last 10 years (with a 200-student peak class in 2010), projects a first-year class of about 140 students in 2013, a drop of around 17-20 percent from the past decade’s average.
Like legions of universities and colleges, as well as many towns and corporations and families nationwide, law schools face real financial challenges. For a smaller school, those challenges are acute.
On the eve of Mihaly’s first anniversary as dean, what signs of progress are visible from South Royalton, famously the only town in America with a law school but without a traffic light? Has VLS confronted its challenges head on?
Vermont Law School is weathering the nationwide storm. As a recent alumnus, I’m proud to see how engaged and proactive the leadership has been during the past year.
One significant sign for optimism is the Board of Trustees’ selection of Mihaly himself, plainly the most important personnel change in recent years. Mihaly spent the majority of his career in private practice, as a leading environmental attorney in California. His practical understanding of the vocation ensures that he understands a critical concern of graduating students: get a good job. In 2004, Mihaly first taught at VLS as a visiting professor and, the following year, permanently joined the faculty. During this stormy period for law schools, having a leader who spent eight years teaching core courses means his priorities are intact: to educate and prepare students. Mihaly’s background demonstrates that the leadership is prepared for the challenges of a difficult era.
VLS’s invigorated and smart leadership, its continued achievement and innovation in academics and professional development, and its responsiveness to the financial climate should buoy the hopes of those that care about the law school.
VLS continues to innovate and develop new approaches to legal education, enhancing the education that receives perennially high marks for environmental law in the popular press. This summer, VLS began its first full-time accelerated degree program, which trims a student’s enrollment from three years to two (including summers). Cultivating institutional support for this program could appeal to the types of motivated students that pursue similar two-year J.D. 2 programs at schools like Northwestern University School of Law and Brooklyn Law School. Other programs that have developed in recent years, such as the on-campus think tank the Institute for Energy and the Environment and the international collaborative U.S.-China Partnership for Environmental Law, look particularly well-suited for students in the 21st century.
An important sign of progress at VLS is how VLS has responded to the larger economic climate, the factors beyond its immediate control. In the popular press during the last few years, a distinct emphasis has emerged in the coverage of law school finances and budgets, a trend that reflects reality: schools are making budget cuts to reflect a changing economy. Often, commentaries criticize the law schools for making cuts. But responding swiftly and fully to financial circumstances should be applauded. Aggressive action by VLS leadership, coupled with increased support for the school, will help VLS persevere.
Across the board, New England universities and graduate schools are meeting different financial pressures. As has been regularly reported in Vermont, due to declining enrollment revenues, dwindling donations, and/or struggling endowments during the recent downturn, both UVM and Middlebury College have enacted significant budget cuts. Aside from shrinking faculty and other cutbacks, Harvard University prominently halted major construction projects in the areas surrounding a massive planned Allston campus, an action which left communities isolated by half-finished construction or vacant, unoccupied lots.
VLS is not Harvard. It is a small school. Its finances are concentrated in people. Smart and responsive schools must confront reality. Transparently and openly, VLS has reduced tenure opportunities (while not decreasing the quality or number of faculty) and frustratedly engaged in unfortunate staff reductions, while keeping J.D. enrollment consistent within historic norms. When VLS faced the harsh moment and made financial cuts, it had painfully limited recourses.
It is unfortunate that VLS cannot halt the construction of a multi-billion-dollar campus in order to save money, but it cannot.
VLS’s invigorated and smart leadership, its continued achievement and innovation in academics and professional development, and its responsiveness to the financial climate should buoy the hopes of those that care about the law school.
The state’s only law school matters so much to so many Vermonters. VLS cultivates the practical and intellectual underpinnings of the state’s legal conversation, from fueling the public debate over Vermont Yankee to providing a sounding board for issues of prison privatization. VLS graduates join law firms and corporations, serve in government and the military, work as public advocates and perform a great duty as public defenders. We should applaud the past year’s work year as it prepares for the decades ahead.
