There have been several articles recently on the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law’s success in recruiting students. (here, here, here) While the school expected about 350 applications, it received over 600, and approximately 140 students have enrolled with about a month to go before classes start. This success is probably due to the low in-state tuition and fees: $14,540 a year. Notably, the school does not give merit scholarships to attract students with high LSATs and GPAs. Such scholarships have been harshly criticized by several studies and commentators, including on this blog. (e.g., here, here, here)

What impresses me most about this law school is its commitment to skills training. Last summer, I had a long phone conversation with North Texas’s associate dean, Ellen Pryor. She had been calling legal education experts throughout the country to get their views on how her school could use the lessons of recent legal education scholarship.

The school seems dedicated to following the lessons of legal education reform. The message from the dean, Royal Furgeson, states:

“Our goal is to be a teaching law school, concentrating on student learning, but with a different vision of what that means. For one thing, in the first year and beyond, your courses will include periodic feedback and assessments during the course, not the usual single test at the end of each semester. This will help you know how well you are learning the material, and how to improve. It also will help us monitor how effectively we are teaching. We don’t want anyone to fall behind if we can prevent it.” (here)

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