Local prosecutor urges university to expand law school to Eastern Idaho

IDAHO FALLS – A local prosecutor is calling on the University of Idaho to expand its law school to the Idaho Falls campus.

Bonneville County Prosecutor Randy Neal submitted a letter Saturday to University of Idaho President Scott Green and University of Idaho College of Law Dean Aviva Abramovsky addressing the lack of opportunities for East residents -Idaho to study law and asks school leaders to consider adding a law school in eastern Idaho.

“In recent years, the legal profession has seen a severe shortage of attorneys to meet the needs of the state of Idaho,” Neal wrote in the letter. “The public sector has been particularly hard hit. We have had to significantly increase salaries and are still struggling to recover from having less than half of our authorized attorney positions filled.”

In a news release, Neal noted that there is interest in law school in eastern Idaho, but many cannot leave the area.

“There are people in this area who want to go to law school, but they cannot leave the area for years to achieve that goal,” Neal wrote. “The University of Idaho has shown that distance learning can expand opportunities to study law in a place other than just the Moscow campus.”

The University of Idaho has two law school campuses Moscow and Boise. Neal says he hopes the university will consider using the Idaho Falls extension campus as a site for a future law school.

“Here in Idaho Falls, the University of Idaho has underutilized facilities. I believe there will also be a substantial cadre of additional resources available from the local legal community,” Neal wrote. “With the COVID accommodations a few years ago and the success of the Boise campus, the U of I College of Law has become much more adept at distance learning.”

Neal also told university leaders that members of his staff hope to attend law school, but say it would hurt the prosecutor’s office to lose them.

“In my own office, I have five administrative assistants who would like to go to law school,” Neal says. “We want to support their progress, but to achieve such a goal they would have to leave the area for years. This would negatively affect us even more.”

Neal said there are many ways to make this idea a reality.

“With every ounce of urgency, I implore the university to explore opportunities in Eastern Idaho for a part-time law school in our region,” Neal wrote. “This doesn’t have to be the same kind of grand undertaking as in Boise and could, for example, take one class every three years instead of every year.”

Read the entire letter here.