Belmont launching law school

University's latest major expansion set to open in two years -- UPDATED with project cost and other details

Email | Print By Geert De Lombaerde and Kyle Swenson

Belmont University officials will this morning announce that they plan to open the state's sixth law school two years from now.

Belmont's College of Law will be the university's fourth doctoral program. The announcement of its creation comes a year after Belmont opened the Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing. At full capacity, the law school will have an enrollment of 350 students.

Belmont will spend $25 million to build a 75,000-square-foot facility. Workers will take 22 months on the project, Belmont President Bob Fisher said. Fisher also said the law school also will create about 50 jobs.

In his comments, Mayor Karl Dean said the new college will fill a need for not only the Nashville region but all of Tennessee.

“In 2008, there were 797 first-tome takers of the Tennessee bar exam,” Dean said. “Of that 797, only 386 attended law school in the state of Tennessee, so this is a needed program.”

The existence of a Belmont law school will allow the school to give back to the Nashville community in a new way, Fisher emphasized. Students will now be able to contribute to the legal problems facing the region.