PSA: The LSTC Will Offer Pro-Law School Consulting Services Much Better Than Relative Hacks in Valpo/Tennessee Case

Proof Middle Tennessee State needs the magical logical reasoning granted only by casebook/Socratic-style legal education after all:  when the matter was before the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, the consultants retained by the commission were Aslanian Market Research (the fuck kinda name is that?) and Jane Sadd Smalec.

Problem: as far as I can tell, Ms. Smalec does not have a law degree.  This brings to my mind an immediate question: have not enough JD Advantage graduates been produced that these government-adjacent easy-contract consultancies are still using non-lawyers?!?!?  Oh my gosh, ABA, turn the faucet back on!

This blatant and regrettably systemic failure to understand the legal education marketplace is readily apparent even from this news summary, e.g.:

"Valparaiso does not have a good reputation," Smalec said during her presentation to the commission.

That's a self-own, Jane. As we all know, Valparaiso's reputation is dried dog-food solid.  The school is, admittedly, chronically underappreciated or, apologies to Spinal Tap, its appeal has become more selective.  But in the words of a rapper (somewhere): 

bein' niche
don't mean
thatta bitch
is in da ditch

So where did this idea that Valpo is somewhere inferior come from?  Oh, the other law schools in Tennessee seeking to protect their oligopoly, of course.

During the public comment period, both the University of Tennessee College of Law and the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law in Memphis wrote letters of opposition.

C'mon! I know you academic beefsteaks want your piece of the pie so you can fart apple-spiced fragrance during your "office hours", but there's plenty of justice education to go around - Tennessee could support 15 law schools - not that Smalec is convinced by the basic math of more is better:

A seventh law school in Tennessee won't improve services to those underserved, Smalec said.

Did she not research the teeming mass of people who show up at court without counsel, their uneducated stuttering causing them to regularly lose winnable cases?  Does she not understand competition reducing prices for the Joe Schmo legal consumer?  Does she not want her local dean's creating jobs by investing in real estate, vanity restaurants, and shitty art?

It's not the only place Smalec's grasp of law, economics, and competition provokes skepticism from a would-be rival consultancy:

The transfer of Valparaiso University's School of Law to MTSU would increase competition for qualified students.
...
The study says adding another law school will only increase the competition for a limited number of opportunities for enrolled students.
...
The study showed that a new law school wouldn't increase employment opportunities across the state; it will only increase competition.

Is competition a bad thing now?  I thought we were still doing capitalism.  Has Tennessee gone pinko on us?  In America, if you have a business accredited by the government and backed by generous public student loan financing, you should be able to set up shop wherever you want in order to maximize your institutional profit and happiness at the expense of whatever misfired carbon-splatters successfully complete the entrance exam.  If you don't like that, you can get out.  I hear Saudi Arabia is nice and much more progressive than it used to be.

All in all: it's a flawed feasibility study, much like the one that was used to kill any idea of an Alaskan law school, and not at all like the one that green lit legal education in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Do you need specific reasons why it's flawed?  Like reason-based arguments?  Well you're in the wrong place, bub; I go from the gut.

In the spirit of free market competition, I propose the LSTC as rival consultants to Aslanian.  The LSTC has now been in business for five years, acquiring diverse expertise in evaluating the American legal education market and licking its rippled, leathery body from every possible angle.  For a high enough fee, the LSTC will write as many pages of academic-ish argument as your rump-roasting commission desires explaining the virtues of affordable, mass produced student loan disbursement in Murfreesboro in language written specifically for gutless government sinecures and delusional interdisciplinary advocates who haven't kept up with the fake news in the last decade. 

Best of all, the LSTC offers very affordable hourly rates for the cash-strapped legal education enterprise.  In fact, for good applicants, I might even offer a scholarship discount.  (Hint: they're all good applicants).

Chug chug goes The Express; chug chug!

The actual, full feasibility study is located here if for whatever reason you want to see how to construct a fairly good feasibility study documenting why Tennessee doesn't need another law school, even though we all know it just does.