South Texas (NKA Houston College of Law) Achieves Brilliant Brand Confusion (UPDATED 6/30)

When a shitty product is facing a lack of consumer interest, it has many options.  You could make the product better.  You could make it cheaper.  Or you could just change the name so consumers confuse it with slightly better products.

Long ago, for example, New York Law School was founded in the same city as New York University, which had a similarly named law school.  That was in 1891, back when Texas only had two law schools and its territory was effectively a lawless hellhole requiring John Wayne to run around and shoot the natives.

Previously, South Texas was mostly confused with Texas Southern.  There's only three letters of difference, both are located in Houston, and both lead to seven-figure lifetime earnings premiums representing downtrodden immigrants and criminal defendants in one of America's fastest growing markets - if they aren't snapped up by Baker Botts first and thrown on the fast track to partner (check your greed, privileged ones, check your greed!).

But if this blog teaches anything, it's that good scamming can always be improved.  Just like million dollar premiums, it's really easy to improve one's standing on paper, and South Texas has done just that.

Not only has South Texas changed its name to Houston College of Law adopted similar colors to a certain rival, the newly named Houston College of Law has drawn a federal court lawsuit from the University of Houston.

UH claims in the suit that the other school's new name too closely resembles the University of Houston Law Center, diluting the brand of UH's law school and infringing on UH's trademarks.

The suit also makes clear that UH views itself as the superior school and is worried about being confused with its competitor in the state's largest city. Last year, U.S. News and World Report ranked the UH Law Center the 50th best law school in the country.

In stark contrast to the reputation and renown of UH regarding education services, and particularly legal education services, as of 2016 [South Texas College of Law] was not ranked at all in the U.S. News Rankings of Best Law Schools," the lawsuit says. "In fact, STCL has struggled since its inception to shed its image as a 'night school.'"

You might think that the Law School Truth Center would oppose law suits between law schools, but South Texas should take this as a badge of honor.  Has a craphole ever successfully lured a top 50 law school to file a law suit requiring the higher-ranked law school admit there's a legitimate potential for confusing the two?

This is a landmark achievement.  Prospective students will now more freely associate South Texas NKA Houston College of Law with the more prestigious University of Houston Law Center, just as the Western Michigan moniker has made Cooley's reputation soar to that of Western New England or Western State.

If anything, Texas Southern should follow suit and change its name to Houston-Marshall, providing not only additional market confusion with the two other Houston schools, but also with the three (3) other law schools bearing the Marshall brand name.

Not since Arizona Summit have I been this proud of a re-branding, and that includes Mitchell Fucking Hamline.

UPDATE:  One of Houston's top 3 law schools has responded.

“Houston College of Law is making this name change to avoid confusion,” Johnson said. “In fact, creating market confusion would be in direct conflict with the mission of our 93-year-old, private, independent law school. For many years we’ve dealt with misunderstanding surrounding ‘South Texas,’ which is not descriptive of our historic location in downtown Houston.”

Maybe they should have called it Houston Summit instead?