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Mutua updates FSEC on UB Law
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“My objective is to take this law school into the top 50 law schools in the country.”
Recruiting better applicants, lowering the student-faculty ratio and increasing faculty productivity were among ambitions for the UB Law School that Dean Makau W. Mutua laid out in a presentation during yesterday’s meeting of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee.
“There are about 200 law schools in the country…Out of the 200 law schools in the country, we are now ranked in U.S. News and World Report at 85,” Mutua said. “My objective is to take this law school into the top 50 law schools in the country. That particular cohort of schools is regarded as the finest law schools in the country.”
He gave his audience a by-the-numbers portrait of the law school and outlined the steps faculty and administrators will take to improve the institution’s ranking.
For incoming UB law students, the median score on the LSAT, a standardized test accredited law schools require for admission, was 157, Mutua said. Officials hope to see that mark rise to at least 161 or 162.
Another goal is to lower the student-faculty ratio from 15-to-1 to 12-to-1, and to improve the productivity of existing faculty in the realm of scholarly activities.
“Our faculty does research in areas that are as complex as you can think about, and they tackle the most vexing and most complicated issues of our day,” Mutua said. “I like to say that although our faculty is productive, it is not as productive as I would like it to be,” he added. “And so as dean, I have been involved in the process of encouraging my faculty to become more productive and creating incentives for them to do so.”
These and other advancements should help the law school build its already impressive reputation in coming years. The work that staff and faculty have done to continually enhance the quality of the law school’s programs already is paying off.
Last fall, National Jurist Magazine ranked UB Law No. 29 on its annual “Best Value Law Schools” list.
In-state tuition of about $16,000 makes UB one of the most affordable law schools in the nation, and the education students receive is top-notch: More than 90 percent land a job within eight months of graduation, the majority at law firms and the rest in business, government, public interest work, clerkships and academia. About half find employment in Western New York. More than 80 percent pass the state bar exam on the first attempt. Graduates’ average starting salary is $75,000, Mutua said.
The dean noted that UB Law has long held a “prominent place in the consciousness of legal education,” in part because the institution was an incubator for the now mainstream field of critical legal studies. Following that line of thought, the school today works to produce attorneys with a social conscience—professionals who “practice law at the intersection of power and powerlessness,” the dean said. The school’s more than 700 students learn that power imbalances exist in society, he said, and that lawyers can help curb abuses of power.
Many of the law school’s 10,000 or so alumni credit their UB education for their success, and they have shown their appreciation by giving back to their alma mater. Their generosity enabled UB Law to raise $2.7 million in 2009-10, Mutua said.
“Though the economy is lagging behind, our alumni are apparently litigating, making money and giving it away,” Mutua said with a chuckle to close his presentation.
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