Law School New England
University of Massachusetts officials are reopening a controversial bid to create the state’s first public law school five years after a similar plan was shot down due to fierce opposition from private law schools.
Marty Xifaras, chairwoman of the Southern New England School of Law, sent a letter to UMass president Jack Wilson last week offering to donate the school to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.
“They will look at it and consider it, but it will be done cognizant of the financial constraints of the moment,” said UMass spokesman Robert Connolly.
UMass Dartmouth officials are currently putting together a proposal based on the donation of the 265-student school, which officials say is valued at $22.6 million.
Members of the Board of Higher Education voted against the acquisition in 2004 at the urging of then-Gov. Mitt Romney citing concerns that the American Bar Association had denied accreditation. Critics estimated taxpayers would have to shell out $40 million for the school to meet ABA standards.
[Boston Herald]
Starting tomorrow and running through Saturday, Southern New England Law School will host “Trends and Issues and Terrorism and the Law,” an event open to the public. Registration is $50, which includes meals.
Speakers will include:
- Charles Swift, who represented Guantanamo detainee and Osama bin Laden’s driver Salim Ahmed Hamdan as a Navy lawyer in the Judge Advocate General Corps
- Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Fahey, who spent a year with the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Professor Jeffrey Addicott, expert on national security and terrorism issues and frequent contributor to FOX News and MSNBC
- SNESL graduate Scott Bartell, head of a United Nations Trust Fund for Victims in Uganda
- Richard Cohen, Southern Poverty Law Center representative who will discuss the issue of hate groups
For more information, visit the school’s website or call Michelle Keith at (508) 863-6022 or Erin Leary at (774) 488-9414.
H/t South Coast Today.
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