On Friday, Oct. 10, UNH President Mark Huddleston and Franklin Pierce Law Center President and Dean John Hutson announced the two schools are exploring a possible merger that could begin as early as next fall.
Both institutions have formed working groups to examine the viability of a union that would pair UNH with the state's only law school.
"We've looked around at different schools and we believe that UNH is a wonderful institution that's well led, has good students and good faculty, and a great deal of attractiveness for any law school," said Hutson.
Taylor Eighmy, the UNH working group chair, said a merger would allow for new academic graduate programs at UNH linking law and business or law and technology innovation. For FPLC, the move could potentially improve rankings with The U.S. News and World Report, increase the number of applications and quality of the FPLC applicant pool, and provide academic synergies around the strengths that FPLC has in the fields of intellectual property and international law.
In merging the private law school with a public university, N.H. law students could enjoy in-state tuition for the first time, as the state currently has no public law schools.
Eighmy said UNH students planning to attend law school could benefit from undergraduate programs, courses and opportunities that FPLC would offer the university.
"Academic environments are always richer when additional scholarly perspectives are made available," he said. "There will likely be opportunities to tie our undergraduate justice studies program to activities and programs within a law college. New, interdisciplinary faculty interactions will also likely occur and this can translate into new perspectives and opportunities in the classroom and across the university."
UNH Prelaw Advisor Paula DiNardo said the merger would also grant UNH a better public name.
"It is very prestigious for a university to acquire a law school and it looks very nice to those who donate, to alumni and to students who want to come here," she said.
Last year, The U.S. News and World Report ranked FPLC's intellectual property program fifth in the nation, falling behind only Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley, and George Washington University.
While there are many positive aspects to the potential merger, Eighmy said the process could be complicated and protracted. "Both institutions must share a vision of what a merged law school will be and how it integrates into the academic fabric of the university," said Eighmy. "Both must do a careful analysis to ensure that the merger makes sense and that a clear path forward is articulated, especially one that ensures that the vision is realized."
Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the schools is deciding whether to keep the schools physically separate or move FPLC to Durham. FPLC is currently located in Concord, which is about a 35-mile and 45-minute drive to UNH's main campus.
"If we were to stay [in Concord] we could run continuous shuttle buses back and forth so students and faculty from each institution could get back and forth easily and comfortably… but there's a good argument to be made that the goodness we've found would be maximized by co-location," said Hutson.
Hutson also noted a merger would change the dynamics of both UNH, with an undergraduate and graduate enrollment of about 15,000, and FPLC, which only has about 500 students.
"We like what we are," he said. "We're small and we're intimate. The faculty know the students, the students know the faculty, and we don't want that to change."
Hutson said a final decision about the merger can be expected by summer 2009.
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