Other than the inconvenient facts of employment data and financial feasibility, sure—a state-supported law school in small-town northwest Louisiana might sound like a good idea.

Last week, Northwestern State University in Natchitoches announced it would seek establishment of a law school on its campus, with a goal of opening in fewer than 18 months. That timeline alone would constitute a Herculean effort: the school would need to secure funding, hire faculty, and achieve accreditation all in that time frame. If successful, it would mark the first law school in Louisiana located outside of New Orleans—home to private Tulane and Loyola—or Baton Rouge, where public Louisiana State University and Southern University currently reside.

For decades, residents of the northern half of the state have voiced complaints that the absence of a nearby law school hampered provision of legal services. The closest alternatives for many have been Metroplex and Little Rock—out-of-state cities that are not much closer than Baton Rouge or New Orleans. NSU alleges it has letters of support from lawyers in the area.

But this not an untested idea—and its track record is less than encouraging. Around 15 years ago, Louisiana Christian University attempted to launch a law school in Shreveport. The project, which included hiring a dean (now U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson) and purchasing a building, collapsed before getting off the ground. It would have been supported with private funding.

More recently, Southern attempted to stand up a branch of its law school in Shreveport. It even for a few years ran a “Semester in Shreveport” program that allowed students to take their final courses at a temporary location in the city. The intent was that this would give them a leg up for employment in the area.

The impetus behind the idea of a law school north of East Baton Rouge Parish is the perception that the region is underserved. When Southern raised the idea, the Louisiana Board of Regents, prodded by the Legislature, commissioned a study to determine “how the state can best meet the legal education needs of students and the economic and workforce development needs” in the northwestern part of the state.

The findings were nuanced. Yes, compared to Baton Rouge and New Orleans, metropolitan areas did have fewer working lawyers per capita while the state’s was about average among its brethren. Shreveport/Bossier was comparable to Lafayette and Lake Charles, and higher than others outside of south Louisiana. Further, the metropolitan area was expected to have legal higher demand than other areas.

But it also revealed key realities that undermined the argument for a new law school. Community colleges were already supplying sufficient numbers of legal paraprofessionals, the overall population of lawyers wasn’t shrinking due to aging out, and other graduate programs—not legal—were more in demand. As well, there was not expected nationally a surge for demand in lawyers, which subsequent history (since 2019) bore out. Total employment has remained flat while the number of jobs per graduate have increased slightly.

If anything, the report too optimistically gauged future demand. The northern part of the state’s population appears to have declined since its 2020 authoring, which would suggest reduced demand for legal services. The report also estimated that establishing a branch law school campus would cost at least $5 million—a figure that’s almost certainly outdated and likely much higher today. And if the aim is to serve historically underserved populations—particularly racial minorities—then Southern, as a historically black institution, would be the most logical vehicle for that mission.

As for Southern’s tentative branching out after the report’s delivery, the program seems to have been abandoned. Its website list nothing past 2023, the faculty coordinator at present doesn’t have the program listed in her biography, and the course schedule indicates all classes are taught at the Baton Rouge campus.

In conclusion, the report argued the apparent under-capacity of lawyers in northwest Louisiana (assuming that having more lawyers proportionally is a good thing; some researchers conclude there are too many for existing demand) is a problem of distribution of legal talent, not of provision. Hence, there would be no cost-effective reason why the state should fund another law school in that area.

There seems little reason to believe that this has changed in any way five years later. Legislators and the Regents need to understand that and forgo wasting taxpayer dollars involved in establishing and running a law school at NSU.