When the University of Idaho decided to develop a livestock research center, it never considered building it on the campus in Moscow. That would be silly. According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, there were fewer than 1,000 milk cows in the 10 counties of the Idaho Panhandle. In 2009, there were 286,700 dairy cattle in Gooding, Jerome and Twin Falls counties alone. So now that the university’s third-year law program in Boise is up and running — classes started this week — why not gradually transition the whole law school from Moscow to the state capital? Ada and Canyon counties are home of more than half of the practicing attorneys in Idaho — a large percentage of them graduates of the U of I law school. The demand for a southern Idaho law school is obvious/Twin Falls Times-News. More here.

Question: Do you think the University of Idaho Law School should be moved to Boise, where most of the state’s lawyers are, or remain in Moscow?

The University of Idaho announced that they received a $1 million grant from the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, to help start a U of I Law School in Boise. … The plan is to eventually be housed in a remodeled Ada County Courthouse, and to be co-located with the Idaho Supreme Court Library. They still need to raise another $6 million to achieve that dream. I dunno about all this, though I’m not sure the U of I has much choice. If they don’t get a Boise presence, the new Concordia Law School is going to siphon off a bunch of their students. And if they do get a three year Boise program, it will pull students from the Moscow campus. Either way, it’s difficult to see how the Moscow law school stays viable, or at least, stays in anything like its current configuration/IdaBlue. More here.

Question: Do you agree with IdaBlue that a law school branch in Boise eventually will undercut that main one at the University of Idaho campus in Moscow?