The NYT's piece suggesting that ABA regulations play a critical role in the affordability of law school is challenged at AmLawDaily by Law School Tuition Bubble's Matt Leichter in a piece grounded in data and replete with graphs. Bottom line:
[W]hile the accreditation standards create an operational price floor, private ABA law schools could try running the "minor-league hustle": hiring cheaper full-time faculty, adhering to a higher student faculty ratio, hiring more local attorney-adjuncts for those clinical courses, skimping on the library as best as possible, using cheaper facilities, etc. This isn't to say that the accreditation standards and U.S. News have no effect on tuition, but law schools, especially those that are unattached to universities like NESL, can be cheaper under the current ABA system.
They just choose not to be.
Read the whole piece to understand Leichter's speculation about why private law schools make that choice.
