McALLEN — A new legislative year is bringing renewed hope for Rio Grande Valley lawmakers who hope to establish a law school in the area.
“The law school is a natural progression as our demographics grow, as our population grows,” said Eddie Lucio III, D-Brownsville.
“There are some great, very talented young professionals who for financial reasons or reasons related to family cannot travel to San Antonio, which is our nearest law school.”
Lucio III and Armando “Mando” Martinez, D-Weslaco, both filed legislation — House Bill 169 and 46, respectively — last week calling for the establishment of a public law school in either Cameron or Hidalgo County.
Just like with the creation of the medical school at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, for which legislation was filed more than 70 years ago, the idea is to lay the groundwork for the creation of the law school.
The Valley had been slated at some point by the UT System Regents as the next best place for a medical school and, according to Lucio III, the same should be said for the law school.
“If you look at other parts of the state — Houston, Dallas, San Antonio — everybody has a law school,” Martinez said. “We believe that we are able to compete with the rest of the state, and we want to be able to provide that opportunity to our bright students here.”
The bills call for any university system to establish the law school and, even though UTRGV might be the first to come to mind, the fact that there has been more interest from other systems, like Texas A&M, expanding to the region opens up more avenues.
“So you are not only saying the University of Texas School of Law,” Martinez said. “You are saying ‘Any public university that would like to create a law school in Texas, here, we have the framework for it and now you can do it.’”
Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, also introduced legislation along the same lines asking for a distance learning program at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law so that UTRGV students can take the first year of law school courses remotely.
“The program must be administered in a manner that is consistent with the accreditation requirements for the law school,” Canales’ House Bill 319 states.
The bill asks for the program to begin no later than the 2018 fall semester and for the UT Board of Regents to ensure that at least five students are able to participate in the remote program each academic year.
Having more than one representative focused on the issue could be beneficial for getting something passed, Lucio III said, and having some sort of initial access such as the distance learning program would be highly beneficial for Valley students.
“If they were to access these schools here, with hopefully some access to night school or non-traditional 8-to-5-type classes, they could improve their quality of life and really benefit the legal community,” Lucio III said.
The greatest hurdle is usually funding, he said, but filing these bills acts as a conversation starter and he has already been discussing the possibility of bringing such a program with some university officials, Lucio III said.
“There’s still a lot of things that need to be answered,” Lucio III said. “You file these bills to learn these things, to make it a conversation that needs to take place and will take place because there’s pending legislation.”
