JoAnne Epps got the bad news in September.

Instead of an expected 1% budget increase, the dean of the Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law learned that she would need to cut about 2% of the budget for the current academic year. The reductions were necessary because the Pennsylvania government — facing a major budget shortfall — was preparing to cut funding to the university by more than 4%.

Administrators at the law school tried to use the scalpel in hopes of avoiding the hatchet.

"We looked at the things we considered most discretionary," Epps said.

That meant paring back library acquisitions, switching over to electronic publications instead of hard copies, leaving some staff positions unfilled and cutting back on faculty travel, among other things.

Epps said the academic experience of Temple law students hasn't suffered because of the cuts, but she worries that the effects could be compounded by more reductions down the road. "Over time, the continued loss of support staff and counselors will be felt deeply," Epps said.

Temple is hardly the only law school struggling with funding cuts and the prospects of smaller budgets in the upcoming academic year. A number of states facing revenue shortfalls are eyeing cuts wherever possible, and higher education is a potential target.

Private schools not immune

The financial picture isn't much brighter — and may actually be worse — for private law schools. Those schools generally rely more heavily than their public counterparts on income from endowments to pay for operations, and the nose-diving financial markets have hit endowments hard. For example, Harvard University's $36.9 billion endowment has fallen 22% since the summer, while Yale University's plunged 25% to $17 billion during that time.

University of Chicago Law School Dean Saul Levmore said reliance on funding from endowments varies, but generally makes up a quarter to a half of the operating budget at private schools. Considering that many endowments have lost between 20% and 40% of their value, schools will likely need to make cuts, he said.

However, the full impact of shrinking endowments won't be felt for several years. Law schools may see modest budget cuts in the short term, but long-term reductions could reach about 17% for very endowment-dependent schools if the economy does not recover quickly, Levmore said.

Levmore declined to discuss the recent losses in the University of Chicago's endowment, but he said he expects to have to trim about 5% from the law school's budget for the coming academic year. Those cuts could come by filling positions more slowly and trying to find efficiencies where possible, he said.

Levmore predicts that the market for visiting faculty at schools across the country will slow significantly this year as law schools try to save money.

"It's the easiest thing to cut because visiting faculty aren't on the permanent payroll," he said. Schools also are likely to be pickier about whom they hire, he said.

While some schools are just starting to deal with the ramifications of smaller budgets, others have been in cutting mode for some time.

The William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has seen its state funding shrink by 9% through two cuts since December 2007, said Dean John Valery White. The housing crisis hit Nevada earlier than many other states, prompting legislators to cut higher education spending sooner.

"You have to cut a little bit of everything in order to get up to a pretty big number," White said. The law school has left some positions empty, cancelled some staff training and faculty travel, decreased its library staff, reduced the number of course sections and switched to more electronic publications to reduce library costs, he said.

The law school also is using some donation money to cover a portion of operational costs, such as staff salaries. In better times, that donation money would go to things such as capital projects or student travel.

"It's really just a stop-gap," White said.

Florida's public universities and community colleges are in line for nearly $150 million in state funding reductions under a plan lawmakers are currently debating. The proposed cuts are part of a larger effort to address the state's $2.3 billion deficit.

Budget cuts are something Florida State University College of Law Dean Donald J. Weidner is getting used to.

"We've already had 7% in budget cuts over the past year and a half. We're expecting more over the next six months, and I think people are very concerned. No one quite knows where this is going," he said.

The law school already has limited its hiring, shrunk its full-time and part-time staff, increased some class sizes and cut back on recruiting events, among other things.

The law school is pushing for a tuition increase to help mitigate the impact of the budget cuts. It has proposed a 15% increase in the $12,000 tuition for in-state residents. Weidner said that the school's tuition for residents is relatively low, but the need to raise it to cover costs is regrettable.

"I fear it's happening nationally to a significant extent. We're losing our vision for a truly low-cost, high-quality state legal education," he said.

Contingency plans

Many law schools simply won't know what their financial future holds until their upcoming budgets are finalized in the late spring or early summer, but some are making contingency plans in the meantime.

In preparation for cuts in state funding, University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco recently asked department heads to shave 5% from their current operating budgets. It also has cancelled the anticipated cost-of-living salary increases for faculty and staff and has scaled back hiring.

The University of North Carolina School of Law has been asked to draw up three different budgets for the next year assuming 3%, 5% and 7% funding cuts, said Assistant Dean for Communications Katie Bowler. The school has already cut down on meeting expenses and faculty travel, as well as printing, supplies and furniture purchases, she said.

"We don't yet know where the [new] cuts will be," Bowler said. "But the school will not need to cut faculty or staff."

Levmore, the University of Chicago law dean, said one major unanswered question is whether budget cuts will lead to a smaller pool of financial aid for law students.

That issue looms largest for private schools, which use attractive financial aid packages to woo students. Financial aid is the fastest growing expense for law schools, Levmore said, and a reduction at one school could set off something of a chain reaction among peer institutions. The University of Chicago Law School has not made any determination about its financial aid awards for the next year, Levmore said.

None of the other law school officials interviewed said their institutions have plans to decrease financial aid, but several acknowledged that budget cuts could have ramifications on aid awards.

"If we didn't have a [proposed] tuition increase to offset the cuts, financial aid would be next," said Florida State law dean Weidner.

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