A South Texas lawmaker's 15-year fight for a Rio Grande Valley law school

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McALLEN — The Texas Legislature can be full of surprises.

But for the last eight sessions, there has been one constant: state Rep. Armando "Mando" Martinez’s proposal to establish a public law school in the Rio Grande Valley.

For the Weslaco Democrat, establishing a law school would open the door to more job opportunities for Valley residents, curb the "brain drain" of young professionals leaving the area to find higher-paying jobs in bigger cities, and provide much-needed legal support for one of the state’s poorest regions.

"A lot of the bright people that work in other areas of the state and across the nation come from the Rio Grande Valley," Martinez said.

The legislation has had mixed support over the years but has never gained traction in the Texas Senate. The cost of opening a law school could be one factor for the lack of support, legal experts and advocates said.

However, after more than a decade of trying, that dream might become a reality without the Legislature’s help. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is currently in talks with St. Mary’s School of Law to create a legal education program locally.

The talks are preliminary, said UTRGV spokesperson Patrick Gonzales, who added the university welcomes the opportunity to build upon those initial discussions.

If that program were to become a reality, it would be the culmination of yearslong efforts in the Valley, which is just one of several legally underserved areas in Texas.

In 2021, there was an average of one lawyer for every 310 Texas residents, according to an analysis by the State Bar of Texas. However, the average varied across the state. In the Valley, there was one lawyer for every 788 residents in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metro area and one lawyer per 738 residents in the Brownsville-Harlingen region. Meanwhile, Travis County, which includes Austin, had one lawyer for every 118 residents and Harris County, which includes Houston, had one lawyer for every 192 residents.

Luz E. Herrera, a professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law, was among the authors of a 2022 research paper that looked into the Valley’s legal needs.

The paper argued that access to legal education plays an important role in access to justice, pointing out that law schools can integrate legal services into their curriculum and encourage graduates to develop affordable services for low-income communities.

Herrera pointed out that most law schools have training programs for their students such as law clinics through which they provide legal assistance to low-income people within the community surrounding the school.

"Students get credit for doing that work," Herrera said. "They're providing free services to people who need it and they're learning something about being a lawyer."

She had pushed to create a legal education program in McAllen but was unable to secure funding for it. However, the A&M law school was awarded grant funding for a two-year pilot program with a local hospital for a medical-legal partnership that is set to launch next year.

Through such partnerships, attorneys work in a health care setting to provide legal help to patients.

An existing medical-legal partnership in the Valley is headquartered at the Brownsville Community Health Center through a partnership with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, a nonprofit that provides free civil legal services.

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid works with low-income Texans in 68 counties, having served more than 17,000 clients and households in 2023.

The workload is heavy for the organization’s staff who work across 18 offices throughout the state. But that’s particularly true in the Valley that has the largest poverty population of any region they work in, according to Pablo Almaguer, pro bono counsel for TRLA.

"We are always understaffed and underfunded," Almaguer said. "Whatever needs you see out there that might be noted in Texas as an average, that [need] would be greater in South Texas."

Almaguer added there is a direct correlation between having a law school and meeting the legal needs of the community. As an example, he said if a hurricane were to hit the area, law clinics would be able to assist residents navigate guidelines to receive federal disaster assistance.

"There is a correlation between better legal services for the poor when there's a law school in that area, geographically speaking," Almaguer said.

A law school once existed in the Valley, if only briefly. It was named the Reynaldo G. Garza School of Law and operated from 1984 to 1993 with provisional accreditation from the Texas Supreme Court. It never received accreditation from the American Bar Association.

Bringing one back could bring lawyers and other professionals to a community, but it wouldn't solve the systematic problems, said Pamela R. Metzger, executive director of the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.

"I don't think it's a fix-all solution," Metzger said. "I think that it is a step but it's not going to be a big enough step to the larger problem."

Texas, like every other state in the country, struggles with legal deserts which are places where there aren't enough lawyers to meet local needs, Metzger said.

However, Texas is unique in its struggle because of the vast distances between communities and the sheer number of counties because some jobs require a county or government affiliation.

To increase the number of attorneys in rural areas, Metzger said they needed to overcome the biggest challenges facing young attorneys such as large student loan debt that may only be paid back with a high-paying job in a major metro area. The other issue is attorneys need support staff to provide mentorship and guidance.

Metzger hopes state legislation will solve the issue of student loan debt by providing financial assistance to attorneys who work in rural communities and noted that the state provides similar assistance to physicians.

During the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers filed legislation in the House and Senate that would have established a student loan repayment program for attorneys who worked in rural counties.

Though the effort stalled, Metzger expects the debate will continue this session.

"We are hoping that this session, the Legislature will go ahead and fund those efforts and take the same care with making sure people's legal rights are protected as it has with making sure that they're getting the health care they need," she said.

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

Disclosure: Southern Methodist University, State Bar of Texas, Texas A&M University and Texas A&M University School of Law have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.