The law school’s reputation is under siege, the morale of its faculty and students battered. Critics allege dismal bar exam passage rates and undistinguished faculty make Southern New England School of Law unworthy of affiliation with the UMass brand.

Four years after its attempt to become the state’s first public law school faltered amid acrimony, the 235-student institution is once again finding itself in the crossfire. The battle is being waged by high-powered lobbyists, influential legislators, and esteemed academicians on Beacon Hill, but the brunt is being felt here, at the school itself.

“My students and faculty have been maligned,’’ the school’s dean, Robert Ward, said during a recent tour of campus, a 75,000-square-foot three-story building next to an outlet mall in North Dartmouth.

Ward acknowledged his school has a way to go to meet national accreditation standards, but said it is far from the crumbling, financially destitute failure critics portray it to be.

He noted a retired appeals court judge – a Harvard Law graduate, no less – among his 13-member faculty.

He showed off a new portrait display of 18 carefully culled alumni – prosecutors, a police chief, attorneys specializing in immigration law and legal services for the poor – who have submitted statements to the school vouching for the quality of their education there.

[Boston Globe]