UNLV dean going out on a high note

The date was Aug. 16, 1998, and the mood was frantic.

The first entering class at UNLV's Boyd Law School was to arrive the next day. And Dean Richard Morgan and his staff were still moving into the law school's first home, the original Paradise Elementary School at Tropicana Avenue and Swenson Street.

Most new law schools, Morgan said, take two years to start up. He'd had just 11 months to start UNLV's, and only six weeks to move into Paradise Elementary.

"We literally had people putting books on the shelves in the library and moving boxes in the faculty offices in the middle of the night on the day that we were going to open classes at the law school," Morgan said.

Eleven months earlier, Morgan had left the comfortable position of dean at Arizona State University's College of Law to start up the law school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"I battled with (UNLV President) Carol (Harter) for a while, you know, (saying), 'We just can't do this in 11 months, give us more time,'" Morgan said. "It was frightening to start a law school that quickly."

Looking back, the 61-year-old Morgan says getting the law school started from scratch was the biggest challenge he faced during 10 years as dean.

Morgan, who is retiring from the post on June 30, admits that Harter, who predicted an economic downturn and shaky financial support from the Legislature, was right in rushing the process.

It didn't seem to hamper the school's rapid development into one of UNLV's finest programs, either.

Since opening, the school:

•Received a U.S. News & World Report ranking among the top 100 law schools in the nation in three out of the four years it qualified.

•Ranked in the top 20 in the nation in clinical training, legal writing and dispute resolution by the news magazine.

•Received accreditation from the American Bar Association in the first year it qualified.

•Remains one of the toughest law schools in the nation to get into, with a 15.4 percent acceptance rate, according to U.S. News & World Report.

•Gained membership in the American Association of Law Schools, a prestigious organization of 168 law schools, after only five years of existence.

"There are schools out there that have been in existence for scores, if not hundreds of years, that aren't members of the Association of American Law Schools because they don't qualify," Morgan said. "And I still get comments from people all over the legal community, 'How did you do that?' To become a member of that organization in five years is unheard of."

The school's success has caused many to heap praise on Morgan, who was dean of the University of Wyoming's law school before taking the helm at ASU.

It has also silenced doubters, who had concerns about the relevancy of a law school in Nevada and whether the school would measure up.

"The biggest issue for me when I came here was to get the community united in the belief that the law school would be a good thing for Nevada," he said. "There was a real split in the community in 1997 about whether the state should spend money on a law school, and there even was a split in the legal community."

Local support has been the key to building the law school and attracting top faculty, he said.

Bill Boyd, founder of Boyd Gaming, and Jim Rogers, owner of Sunbelt Communications and chancellor of the state's higher education system, have both pledged $30 million to the school.

Morgan said he used that support to tell potential faculty, "It's not going to be one of those things that's going to turn into a third-rate law school with people like that behind it."

"If you come here, you will have a role in building a really excellent law school," Morgan said he told them. "You're not going to come here and three years from now watch as we dissolve the place. It's going to succeed."

When he leaves June 30, Morgan will continue to live in Las Vegas and take a part-time post at Lionel Sawyer & Collins training new attorneys, creating legal education programs and possibly working in dispute resolution.

In addition to serving on several gaming compliance committees, he said he will also do consulting work for Sunbelt Communications and developer Michael Saltman's Vista Group. Saltman has donated millions to the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution at the law school.

"One of the interesting things about this period of lame duck-dom was that I had expected that once I announced my retirement, which I did in the middle of September, that I would kick back a little bit and relax," Morgan said. "But it has been more frantic and frenetic than it has ever been."

In the 2 1/2 months he has left, he said he wants to develop a specialty program in gaming law, similar to the school's specialty programs in dispute resolution and legal writing, and its legal clinic.

Morgan said the program would have to be approved by the faculty and the new dean, John Valery White, now a Louisiana State University law professor.

Morgan said he wouldn't spend time second-guessing the direction of the law school or White, who Morgan predicted would do a good job.

He said he was "scared" of the changes that await when he leaves the law school. He said he would remember his time at UNLV as the best in his 27-year academic career.

"I had high expectations," Morgan said. "I really did think this school could start off fast, as Arizona State started off fast and a few other law schools did. But we have gone much farther than even I thought we could."