© 2017 The Texas Lawbook.
By Evan Hoopfer of the Dallas Business Journal
(June 6) – The University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law has received provisional approval for accreditation from the American Bar Association, the university announced Tuesday afternoon.
Receiving provisional approval is a stepping stone to being a fully accredited law school, a university official told the Dallas Business Journal. The UNT team presented their case before an ABA committee June 3, a release from the university said.
The law school is on its way to becoming Dallas’ first and only accredited public law school. This is a battle the university has been fighting since it opened its doors in 2014.
“Our goal has always been to equip graduates with practice-ready competencies and the practical knowledge to pass the Texas Bar Exam,” Royal Furgeson, founding dean of the UNT Dallas College of Law, said in a written statement. “We now have a clear path to demonstrate that the innovative curriculum and the resources we’ve established will support exactly that kind of success.”
The previous problem the ABA outlined was the caliber of students UNT was accepting did not have high enough test scores. That problem rived against the goal of the school, which was to provide the opportunity for a law school education to everybody.
The DBJ outlined the situation UNT faced in a cover story last year. Also, the law school is getting ready to move to the historic UNT Municipal Building after renovations take place. Here’s an exclusive look at the inside of the historic building, including the jail cell Lee Harvey Oswald was detained in after killing president John F. Kennedy.
UNT Dallas held its first-ever Juris Doctor hooding ceremony for 74 students from the inaugural class of 2017 on May 20 and those students will be graduates of an ABA-approved law school when their degrees are conferred in mid-June and thereafter. Students from UNT Dallas College of Law were already eligible to take the Texas Bar Exam, July 25-27, 2017, through an Administrative Order from the Supreme Court of Texas.
“UNT Dallas College of Law is different by design. Our Board of Regents and System leadership recognized that law and the legal profession are in the midst of transformational change, and thus we created a unique, experiential curriculum that is designed to prepare our students for the future,” UNT System Board of Regents Chairman G. Brint Ryan said in a written statement.
“By granting provisional accreditation to our law school, the ABA is saying it believes in our bold new approach,” he said.
For a longer version of this article in the Dallas Business Journal, please visit www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news.
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