New York, The Law School State

I’ve long taken the position that one of the primary problems with lawyer over-reaching, ethical issues and just plain diminishing revenues is that fact that we have too many lawyers.  And if we have too many in general, you can bet that New York, the lawyer haven of the world, has too many in particular.

So what’s New York going to do about it?  What else, build more law schools!

According to this Newsday story, the budget just passed by the Legislature, the one that didn’t have enough money to give raised to judges, has $50 million in there to develop three new law schools.


The state budget passed by the Legislature earlier this month includes more than $50 million for developing law schools in the Rochester and Binghamton areas and on Long Island. The Rochester school would be affiliated with St. John Fisher College, a private school in suburban Pittsford, while the SUNY system’s Binghamton and Stony Brook universities would get their own law schools.

What’s a branch of SUNY (State University of New York) without a law school, right?  Second string. Worthless.  A loser school. 

So why do we need 3 more law schools in New York?


“I have no idea why the state would consider three more law schools,” said Thomas Guernsey, dean of Albany Law School. “There’s no evidence in the job market that we need more than those 15 schools.”

The bar association reports that about 7,700 people passed the New York bar exam in July 2007. With several thousand people passing the exam each year, there’s no shortage of lawyers, Guernsey said.

So there’s no shortage of lawyers (duh), and the law deans don’t think we need them.  Then why?

A state lawmaker who pushed for the St. John Fisher funding in the state budget says a law school, if located in downtown Rochester, would give the city a much-needed economic boost.

“This is really about improving regionalism and improving Rochester’s academic landscape and career opportunities,” said state Senator Joseph Robach, a Republican from suburban Greece.

(For those of you who didn’t realize the suburban Greece is a part of New York, it’s just a hop, skip and jump away from suburban Rome.)

Well, like I always say, if it’s good for downtown Rochester…

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5 thoughts on “New York, The Law School State”

  1. Niki Black

    “Well, like I always say, if it’s good for downtown Rochester…”

    I detect a note of sarcasm. As a Rochestarian, I agree wholeheartedly with the above statement…minus the sarcasm;)

  3. Kathleen Casey

    A cautionary tale. Tripling the size of SUNYAB Law School, with State money, pushed Buffalo into oblivion, along with other State and Federal spending, now the second poorest city in the country. It has half the population it had in 1960.

    The law school, once private law school, is now essentially a State agency. Public agencies and authorities, and New York has too many of both, are by definition lodestones for us, our children, and their children, unless of course they strike out for other states, or for NYC, which has been happening.

    If the market for another law school existed, it would have attracted investment already, with private funding, not public funding. But these are our representatives deciding, the vast majority of whom have never had the experience of worrying about meeting payroll. They cannot grasp the concepts of minimal government, minimal spending, and getting out of the way of the economy. Public money does not create prosperity. The economy of Manhattan is a fair example of that idea. Substantially private money keeps that engine going.

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