Criss Endorses Idea Of Law School In Valley

We missed this press release in the swarm that came through yesterday:

Texas Supreme Court candidate Judge Susan Criss, D-Galveston, who helped create a video that encourages minority students to become attorneys and judges, is calling on the University of Texas System and state lawmakers to build a UT law school in the predominantly Hispanic Lower Rio Grande Valley.
Criss, a veteran district judge and former prosecutor, was executive producer in 2003 and 2004 for the video, “The Color of Justice,” a 12-minute film that encourages Texas high school students to study hard, go to college, and consider law as a career.
As part of her lifelong commitment to promoting equal opportunities is Texas, Criss is now taking that message to the highest levels.

“Of the more than 77,000 lawyers in Texas, only 14 percent are from minority populations, according to a report produced last spring by the State Bar of Texas,” said Criss. “Yet more than 59 percent of Texas schoolchildren are considered to be from minority populations, and Mexican Americans make up one-third of our state’s population. We need to encourage more minority students to pursue careers in the law.”
Criss is the first statewide candidate since Tony Sánchez of Laredo, a former UT System regent who was the Democratic Party nominee for governor in 2002, to advocate for a UT law school for the Valley.
Criss, who has presided over some of the most famous trials in Texas in recent times, is seeking the March 4 Democratic Party primary nomination for Place 8 on the Texas Supreme Court.
The Texas Supreme Court is the state’s highest legal arena for civil matters and is comprised of a chief justice and eight justices elected on the statewide ballot.
Last year, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, who is currently a candidate for Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, also said the Valley deserved a UT law school.

Diversity important for Texas

Criss said the Valley provides an outstanding pool of qualified law students.

“Any successful law school must have two main elements – a great administration and faculty, and diversity among its students,” said Criss. “As it now stands, it is just too much of a financial and personal burden for qualified Valley residents to attend law school hundreds of miles away from home. Texas is losing out on this great talent.”

Criss, who attended UT Law School in Austin in the early 1980s before graduating from South Texas College of Law in Houston in 1986, said she will soon take the issue to the UT System regents in the hope of securing their endorsement for the “long-overdue goal.”

She wants both the UT System and the Texas Legislature, through their respective legislative committees, to begin in-depth studies on what it would take to get a UT Law School up and running in the Rio Grande Valley, a region that is approaching 1.5 million residents.

Beyond that, she will lobby the Legislature in 2009 to seek the creation and funding of the law school.

Valley lawmakers on right track

In 2007, Criss said, Valley lawmakers “took a big, big step” in that effort with the filing of legislation by Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr., D-Brownsville, and his son, Rep. Eddie Lucio, III, D-San Benito, to create a UT Law School in the Valley.

The companion bills – House Bill 1099 and Senate Bill 1400 – were considered by the House Higher Education Committee and the Senate Education Committee last spring.

Although neither bill made it out of the Legislature, the committee hearings provided key information, including, for the first time, the cost of such a facility, she said.

“We now know about how much it would cost to have a UT law school, serving about 200 students a year, but now we need to know what is UT going to do about it, and what can the Valley do to help itself out,” said Criss. “That’s why I am calling for public hearings – both by the UT System and the Legislature – to be held in the Valley on this most important issue, so we can be ready to pass it through the Legislature in 2009.”

Criss also noted that Rep. Armando “Mando” Martínez, D-Weslaco, reportedly added an amendment to another bill during the 2007 legislative session that also would have created a law school in the Valley.
Although Martínez’ legislative effort also fell short, it served further notice of the importance of a law school for deep South Texas, she said.

Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, also has been a longtime champion for a UT law school for the Valley. He has supported a version that would focus on the study of international law, in addition to the required curriculum at UT-Austin.

The legislation filed by the Lucio lawmakers called for the creation of a law school that by 2012 would serve about 200 students. It would cost about $10 million a year, according to the Legislative Budget Board.

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