Appearance of Impropriety: The Inherent Ethical Dilemma of States With a Single Law School
By Michael K. Portney
The Foundation
In my very first business law class, the professor said something that stuck with me for life. We were discussing the appearance of impropriety and conflicts of interest in the legal process. Here’s the quote
“It’s not really appropriate for a state to only have one law school, even though there are a number of states that do.”
It registered immediately. Put plainly, a lack of diversity among the officials participating in a process calls into question the credibility of the process. It doesn’t matter if impropriety has occurred: it matters if it appears improper. After years of research and personal experience navigating structural barriers in Montana, I see exactly what he meant — and the implications go far beyond just one state.
Today, 14 U.S. states have only one ABA-accredited law school. While this may be an economic or geographic necessity in some places, it creates a dangerous ecosystem when that law school becomes the sole pipeline to positions of legal authority. And nowhere is this problem more visible — or more problematic — than in Montana.
This article explores the structural risks inherent in one-law-school states, using Montana as a case study. The goal isn’t to attack the institutions or individuals trained there, but to demonstrate how system design, not intent, creates blind spots, conflicts, and ethical breakdowns that affect real people’s access to justice.
The Problem with One-Law-School States
Here are the key systemic risks posed by one-law-school legal ecosystems:
Institutional Capture – One school becomes the feeder for all branches of power: courts, prosecutors, regulators, and disciplinary boards. Independence erodes.
Gatekeeping and Insularity – Hiring favors alumni. Oversight boards are populated by former classmates. Critical outsider voices are excluded.
Conflict of Interest – Disciplinary complaints, ethical reviews, and professional referrals often involve people who went to school together, clerked for each other, or now share institutional loyalties.
Ethical Groupthink – A single legal culture produces uniform assumptions about law, ethics, and professional norms. Dissent becomes deviation.
These risks exist everywhere to some extent — but they become supercharged in one-school states where the entire professional pipeline is controlled by a single institution.
It’s not difficult to picture a University of Montana homecoming weekend where the majority of the state judicial apparatus is all in the same football stadium, sitting on the same bleacher, and going to the same bars or restaurants (or country club) afterwards. In this thought experiment, it becomes likely that there are actually two cliques, not one: U of M law Democrats and U of M law Republicans.
Montana: A Case Study in Capture
Montana has only one law school: the Alexander Blewett III School of Law at the University of Montana, named after a prominent family in Montana law culture which donated $10 million to the school. It’s a respected institution, but its position as the only legal credentialing pipeline in the state creates a self-reinforcing power structure.
6 of 7 current Montana Supreme Court Justices are UM Law graduates.
The Chief Disciplinary Counsel, most district judges, many prosecutors, and the majority of bar leadership are also alumni.
The Commission on Practice, which handles attorney discipline, often comprises the same legal network — again dominated by UM Law graduates.
This creates a culture where challenging misconduct becomes nearly impossible without going through the same network that may have created or protected it.
How This Impacts Accountability
Montana’s history illustrates how the one-school structure evolves into institutional capture:
Until the 1980s, UM Law graduates enjoyed a diploma privilege, meaning they were admitted to the bar without taking the exam. Outsiders had to prove themselves; insiders did not.
In Huffman v. Montana Supreme Court (1974), a federal court reviewed this privilege and found that the judiciary essentially viewed UM Law as an arm of its own bar licensing function.
The Montana Supreme Court even asserted that it “could not concede it had no control over the law school.” That kind of relationship blurs the line between education and regulation.
And the same pattern persists today:
When a grievance is filed with the Montana Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC), and that grievance implicates one of its own staff, the complainant is instructed to submit the complaint to the very office under scrutiny.
There is no neutral intake path. No separation of power. The fox guards the henhouse.
Attempts to appeal are routed through a Supreme Court composed largely of alumni of the same school — some of whom have personal or professional connections to those involved.
This is not just a Montana problem. But Montana shows what happens when the safeguards are weakest.
Comparative Analysis: Other One-School States
Let’s compare how other single-law-school states handle this same dynamic:
Delaware has only one in-state law school (Widener Delaware Law), but many of its judges and bar leaders come from elite national schools due to the state’s national corporate litigation role. This mitigates insularity.
Nevada (UNLV Law) sees heavy inflow of lawyers from California, which diversifies its judiciary and bar despite having only one school.
New Mexico (UNM Law) has a large Hispanic and Native American population, and the law school integrates cultural law, but proximity to other legal markets keeps its system from becoming closed.
Montana, by contrast:
Has no major metro draw to attract external legal talent
Retains a majority of its law school graduates in-state
Maintains a culture where longtime personal relationships and shared professional history are the norm, not the exception
This creates a fragile ethical ecosystem where the same people interpret, apply, and enforce the rules — often about each other.
Solutions for Montana — and Others Like It
There is nothing inherently wrong with having one law school — but there are specific responsibilities that come with that structure:
Create firewalls between disciplinary offices and their oversight bodies
Establish neutral intake for complaints, especially when internal staff or state bar leadership is named
Appoint citizen members to commissions like the Commission on Practice
Diversify hiring pipelines through clerkships, appointments, and bar committees
Invite national reviewers to evaluate the judicial and disciplinary process periodically
Invest in legal ethics education that emphasizes system design and power awareness
Montana should lead on this — not because it's uniquely bad, but because it's uniquely vulnerable.
Conclusion: The System Is the Problem
The issues facing Montana are not about individual misconduct. They’re about a structure that makes accountability almost impossible.
When everyone in the system was trained by the same people, at the same school, in the same town — where your bar exam reviewer may have graded your ethics complaint against your law school friend — justice becomes a matter of loyalty and discretion, not of fairness and process.
As my professor said back in Texas:
“The fewer the gatekeepers, the tighter the circle — and the easier it is for the circle to close behind them.”
That’s what Montana is up against. And unless we break that circle open — unless we build multiple entry points, multiple viewpoints, and independent accountability — the law in states like this will never fully belong to the public.
Citations:
Huffman v. Montana Supreme Court, 372 F. Supp. 1175 (D. Mont. 1974)
UC Davis Law Review, Adam Gershowitz (2009)
Brennan Center for Justice, State Judicial Diversity Reports
North Dakota Supreme Court Press Release (2021)
University of Montana Blewett School of Law faculty and alumni records
Daily Montanan, commentary on Montana’s Grizzly Bar culture
National Center for State Courts: State Judicial Selection Methods
Vermont Law Review on public oversight in rural legal systems
State of Montana Commission on Practice procedures
American Bar Association Accreditation Records
