Princeton Law School? Forum

[Borg]

I keep hearing these rumors that Princeton is considering founding a law school again. I haven't seen anything online to back it up, but the people I've heard it from are professors. Anyone on that campus hear anything about it?

[dingbat]

I keep hearing these rumors that Princeton is considering founding a law school again. I haven't seen anything online to back it up, but the people I've heard it from are professors. Anyone on that campus hear anything about it?

Recently (within past 6 months or so) Princeton made a statement that they are not currently considering it
(this was prompted by rumors circulating due to the Rutgers-Camden /Rowan merger)

[joemoviebuff]

I wonder where in the rankings it would first appear if they did decide to start a school.

[dingbat]

I wonder where in the rankings it would first appear if they did decide to start a school.

That's probably why they won't do it.
If they can't break into the T14 (which I doubt they could) they'd be diluting their brand

[sfreuden]

I keep hearing these rumors that Princeton is considering founding a law school again. I haven't seen anything online to back it up, but the people I've heard it from are professors. Anyone on that campus hear anything about it?

No, I haven't heard anything about this on campus. Honestly, I don't even know where we would put it if we did.

[BK201]

Why haven't they had one all along?

[Napt]

Why haven't they had one all along?

Princeton doesn't have a law, med, or b-school. More ug focused I guess.

[dingbat]

Why haven't they had one all along?

They did have one. It closed in the 1850s, I believe.
But, instead of asking TLS, try asking google

[BK201]

Why haven't they had one all along?

They did have one. It closed in the 1850s, I believe.
But, instead of asking TLS, try asking google

I did but all I found was a scant Wikipedia page consisting mostly of "Mistaken and fictional references".



P.S. I had to type this from the ICU cause of that major burn you gave me, jerk.

[dingbat]

Why haven't they had one all along?

They did have one. It closed in the 1850s, I believe.
But, instead of asking TLS, try asking google

I did but all I found was a scant Wikipedia page consisting mostly of "Mistaken and fictional references".



P.S. I had to type this from the ICU cause of that major burn you gave me, jerk.

I wasn't trying to be a jerk, just saying that no one on this sits would have the slightest clue and won't be able to provide more info than a few minutes researching will provide.
Don't be so touchy

[nutella3000]

Well, Princeton has a law program (Law and Public Affairs), but not a law school. See http://lapa.princeton.edu/fellowships.php.

Some law grads go to do a LAPA fellowship to boost their academic credentials for the teaching market.

[Detrox]

I wonder where in the rankings it would first appear if they did decide to start a school.

That's probably why they won't do it.
If they can't break into the T14 (which I doubt they could) they'd be diluting their brand

Almost certainly would be within the T14 within the first 5 years, and no, I'm not the dean of NYU Law.

[dingbat]

I wonder where in the rankings it would first appear if they did decide to start a school.

That's probably why they won't do it.
If they can't break into the T14 (which I doubt they could) they'd be diluting their brand

Almost certainly would be within the T14 within the first 5 years, and no, I'm not the dean of NYU Law.

What on earth makes you think that?

[09042014]

I wonder where in the rankings it would first appear if they did decide to start a school.

That's probably why they won't do it.
If they can't break into the T14 (which I doubt they could) they'd be diluting their brand

Almost certainly would be within the T14 within the first 5 years, and no, I'm not the dean of NYU Law.

It would require firms to recruit there. Which would require them to have really good admits. They'd have to pull a UC Irvine to have any shot at that, but go even longer with all the full rides.

Better to try it when the economy is good. Firms will be more willing to hire that way.

But if they didn't kill it at OCI, the school would be a failure.

[Borg]

I wonder where in the rankings it would first appear if they did decide to start a school.

That's probably why they won't do it.
If they can't break into the T14 (which I doubt they could) they'd be diluting their brand

Almost certainly would be within the T14 within the first 5 years, and no, I'm not the dean of NYU Law.

It would require firms to recruit there. Which would require them to have really good admits. They'd have to pull a UC Irvine to have any shot at that, but go even longer with all the full rides.

Better to try it when the economy is good. Firms will be more willing to hire that way.

But if they didn't kill it at OCI, the school would be a failure.

I would think that Princeton would be capable of this though. They have the kind of endowment that would allow them to attract a good number of heavy hitters from top schools, and they could probably convince a lot of t-10 type admits to go there for free. It is Princeton after all. If they kept their class size small like Yale or Stanford, I wouldn't be surprised if they could get a class with numbers rivaling many of the top schools immediately.

As for firms, the university is prestigious enough and close enough to New York that recruiters would probably be pretty interested. If this were Dartmouth or something it would be a different story because it's so remote, but it's basically the same distance from New York as Penn. Basically, if there is a school that could up and start a law school and make it work I think Princeton would be it.

[ThreeRivers]

It would be really really interesting what the first class of Princeton Law would look like

I can imagine TLS would explode with different opinions on if 0L should go to Princeton or ______ school.

My opinion? I agree with Borg

It could become an elite law school right from the start. All they'd have to is have a really small class, offer tons of $$$$ to entice just enough t14 applicants to go there to get some really nice medians. This would attract firms, which would = beast OCI, which would then make it an attractive school. At this point they could increase class size / decrease scholly $

ASW and other such sales would be kind of funny... basically be only school that has to sell their UG

[laxbrah420]

serious question --what makes Princeton prestigious? no business, med or law school --the professional schools are in architecture, engineering, and international affairs... they're not putting out great research. it's super hard to get into yea and im sure it's a great experience for UGs, but I'm not sure that's the same as prestige?

[ThreeRivers]

It doesn't have a lot of programs

That doesn't mean its ug / programs it does have aren't really good

[rad lulz]

.

[banjo]

serious question --what makes Princeton prestigious? no business, med or law school --the professional schools are in architecture, engineering, and international affairs... they're not putting out great research. it's super hard to get into yea and im sure it's a great experience for UGs, but I'm not sure that's the same as prestige?

Top-notch non-professional graduate programs (such as economics).

[Napt]

serious question --what makes Princeton prestigious? no business, med or law school --the professional schools are in architecture, engineering, and international affairs... they're not putting out great research. it's super hard to get into yea and im sure it's a great experience for UGs, but I'm not sure that's the same as prestige?

Top-notch non-professional graduate programs (such as economics).

It's prestigious because of the ug, the grad programs have little to nothing to do with it.

[dingbat]

That's probably why they won't do it.
If they can't break into the T14 (which I doubt they could) they'd be diluting their brand

Almost certainly would be within the T14 within the first 5 years, and no, I'm not the dean of NYU Law.

It would require firms to recruit there. Which would require them to have really good admits. They'd have to pull a UC Irvine to have any shot at that, but go even longer with all the full rides.

Better to try it when the economy is good. Firms will be more willing to hire that way.

But if they didn't kill it at OCI, the school would be a failure.

I would think that Princeton would be capable of this though. They have the kind of endowment that would allow them to attract a good number of heavy hitters from top schools, and they could probably convince a lot of t-10 type admits to go there for free. It is Princeton after all. If they kept their class size small like Yale or Stanford, I wouldn't be surprised if they could get a class with numbers rivaling many of the top schools immediately.

As for firms, the university is prestigious enough and close enough to New York that recruiters would probably be pretty interested. If this were Dartmouth or something it would be a different story because it's so remote, but it's basically the same distance from New York as Penn. Basically, if there is a school that could up and start a law school and make it work I think Princeton would be it.

But would it be worth it?
Let's say that Princeton would need to charge $50k per student and have 200 students to be profitable (roughly comparable to Yale)
That comes down to $10,000,000 per year, or $50m over 5 years.

Now let's say they decide to give full schollys in year 1, 2/3 schollys to 100 students in year 2, 1/2 schollys to 125 students in year 3, 1/3 schollys to 150 in year 4 and 1/4 schollys to 175 students in year five (seems like a reasonable ramp-up)
That means revenue of $31m plus outstanding shortfall of $10.6m (to cover outstanding schollys for yr 4&5 admits plus making up for lower enrollment numbers those years)

Total cost is $41.6m, but let's round it down to $40m due to slightly lower costs in the early years (smaller class size)
But, this is before you have to build a new building. I'm not able to look it up now, can someone provide the costs for UCI and for Fordham's new building (currently under construction)? Any others? I figure an average of the two should be fairly representative.

I'm going to guess $100 million.
So, Princeton would need to take about $150 million out of their endowment to try to establish a new law school in a crowded market. Think about it. Princeton is in the middle of nowhere. That means trying to muscle in on Yale, Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Penn amd Cornell in the Northeast. Add Stanford and Chicago for federal or Duke, UVA and Georgetown for feeding directly into DC (not to mention the rest of the T14 on a national level)

I could see them thinking long and hard before spending 9 figures trying to compete with those names. While they probably could, the question is why they would.

Princeton should be aiming to break into the HYS trilogy, considering the level of the rest of their school, maybe be ok with CCN(P) status
Any less I think they'd find unacceptable.
That's a tall order

[bernaldiaz]

serious question --what makes Princeton prestigious? no business, med or law school --the professional schools are in architecture, engineering, and international affairs... they're not putting out great research. it's super hard to get into yea and im sure it's a great experience for UGs, but I'm not sure that's the same as prestige?

Top-notch non-professional graduate programs (such as economics).

It's prestigious because of the ug, the grad programs have little to nothing to do with it.

Seriously, why do you think undergrad has nothing to do with prestige? That's pretty dumb.

[Br3v]

Who hear would go to Princeton LS out of curiosity?

[bernaldiaz]

Who hear would go to Princeton LS out of curiosity?

I would.