Chapman Will Lay Down the Law Gently

Kiss the days of a high-stress, ultra-competitive legal education goodby. Chapman University is introducing a kinder, gentler version of law school.

“We can become the most user-friendly law school in the country,” Jeremy Miller, acting dean of Chapman University’s new School of Law, said Monday. “The majority of law school classes are held in an atmosphere of fear and stress. That does not promote learning--it promotes bad lawyers.”

Miller made a promise to the teachers, lawyers and others who had gathered at a news conference here that students who enroll in the new school will study law in a “positive” atmosphere and instructors will help them all to succeed.

Chapman University President James L. Doti added that the law school will seek approval by the American Bar Assn. after its first year and will provide an alternative for students who don’t want to commute out of the county to go to an ABA-approved school.

“It’s a shock that it’s taken this long for someone to do it,” said Franz Miller, secretary of the Orange County Bar Assn., who is not related to Jeremy Miller.

Jeremy Miller said that Orange County is the largest metropolitan area in the nation without an ABA-accredited law school. There are six in Los Angeles County and two in San Diego County.

Western State University College of Law, with campuses in Irvine and Fullerton, sought that accreditation unsuccessfully during the mid-1980s. Western State spokeswoman Val Bagarozzi said the college is satisfied with accreditation by the Committee of Bar Examiners of the State Bar of California.

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American Bar Assn. officials said accreditation depends on a school’s financial security, a good library and other factors. There are 176 such approved schools nationwide.

Graduates of ABA-approved schools may sit for the bar in any state, Chapman officials said.

Doti said the school will open in September, 1995, in leased office space in the South Coast Metro area. And as an economist, Doti was quick to point out the school’s projected impact on the county.

“From now until the year 2000, it will produce a $65-million direct economic impact,” Doti said. That will come from salaries, building costs and other expenditures.

The university will launch a $22-million fund-raising drive to pay for the school. Most of that will pay for land and a building that will house the law school, which must have an area of at least 100,000 square feet--the size of Chapman’s Argyros Forum--to satisfy accreditation guidelines, Doti said.

Chapman will spend about $13 million in the next three years to start the school, Doti said. About $8.3 million will come from law student tuition and the university will chip in $5.3 million, he said.

Law school tuition will be about $17,000 a year, similar to undergraduate tuition, Doti said.

Chapman Law School administrators will recruit students from Orange County at first and later spread recruiting efforts to other counties and elsewhere in the nation. The school will emphasize international business and tax law and ethics, they said.

Doti said he and other officials chose Jeremy Miller as acting dean because of his vision for the law school.

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“When he talks about a user-friendly environment, he talks about a place where law is fun and exciting,” Doti said. “There will always be pressure in law school. It’s a tough education, with a lot of demands and very high expectations . . . but it can be a place where faculty treat students as individuals.”

Miller, who taught for more than 10 years at Western State, said he tries to emphasize the compelling facets of law. He’s published several tapes and books, such as “Everything You Wanted to Know About Criminal Law But Were Afraid to Ask.”

Law isn’t just about cases and trials, said Miller, who teaches ethics. “It’s about problems, divorce and broken lives. . . . It’s about people, not facts.”

Lest students think it will be an easy ride, Miller issues a warning: Students will have to write. A lot.

“Lawyers, as intelligent as we are, have room for improvement in our writing ability,” he said. Every first-year law class will have a writing component.

The new dean also plans to bring Western State’s pro bono legal work requirement to Chapman. As a teacher at Western State, he helped start a policy requiring new students to volunteer free legal services for the needy to graduate.

Doti said the law school means a new credo for his campus.

“It’s official today,” Doti said, “there will be no more lawyer jokes at Chapman University.”

A Kinder, Gentler Law School

* Scheduled opening: September, 1995.

* Temporary site: Office space in South Coast Metro area.

* Students: About 200 expected in first year (half of them full time); 600 expected by 2000.

* First-year faculty: Six full-time, tenure-track professors, four part-time professors.

* Start-up costs: Expected $13 million for first three years.

* Funding sources: About $4 million to $5 million from Chapman; student tuition expected to cover the rest.

* School focus: International business and tax law and ethics.

* Attitude: “Publish or perish, as they say. But (Chapman law school professors must) teach well or perish, and be nice to the students or perish.”--Acting Dean Jeremy Miller

Source: Chapman University