Why Go to SMU Law School?
Reader James Ingram explains:
Another reason a lawyer planning to practice in Dallas might stay at SMU for law school is that the personal and professional contacts acquired there would be infinitely more valuable than those acquired at say, Harvard or Stanford. In most of the South, and much of the Midwest for that matter, the business, professional and political elites are alumni of the flagship state university (say Ole Miss or UNC Chapel Hill) or a handful of elite regional private colleges and universities (SMU, Vanderbilt, William & Mary). Ivy League backgrounds are not an asset in this part of the world.
A good example of this is Hillary Clinton. Much of the Whitewater saga revolved around her attempts, as a young partner in a Southern law firm, to develop legal business. Despite the fact that she is bright, a world champion networker and has stellar credentials she ended up falling back on her husband's political cronies like Jim McDougal. Her Wellesley/Yale axis of contacts, so valuable in New York or Washington, proved useless in Arkansas. (How many Wellesley grads have ever been to Arkansas, for Heaven's sake?)
This is quite right. Texas is certainly run by UT, SMU, and A&M grads, with the occasional Bush thrown in for diversity.