The case to create a public law school in El Paso grew stronger after the Paul L. Foster Family Foundation offered evidence Thursday that the community would support that venture with an up to $5 million matching grant.
University of Texas at El Paso President Heather Wilson shared the news during an El Paso Bar Association luncheon at Anson 11, 303 N. Oregon St. There were about 60 people in attendance including elected officials, judges and attorneys.
Wilson encouraged members of El Paso’s legal community to support this effort that will show the community’s commitment to this goal when conversations continue with the University of Texas System Board of Regents and the Texas Legislature.
Wilson said if the community takes advantage of the matching grant, the project will be halfway to the goal of $20 million to support a law school during its first 10 years.
“We can’t do it alone,” she said near the end of a presentation about the law school that included other positive achievements at UTEP. “We have to go to others from firms to the people in this room. If you help us, we can do this.”
Wilson took a moment to acknowledge some of the people in the room who had carried this project forward through the decades. They included former state Rep. Lina Ortega, attorney Janet Monteros and Ray Mancera, LULAC national vice president for the Southwest.
“Thank you all for your work and inspiration,” Wilson said. “Some of you have been working on this for over 20 years. Others of us are newer to the game, but I think together it’s more likely that we will make something happen.”
Monteros was pleased with the decision by the Foster Family Foundation and thanked Wilson for her work to pilot this effort, along with every other person who has been part of the journey.
“Everyone contributes,” an ecstatic Monteros said after the luncheon. “Everyone is standing on each other’s shoulders.”
Mancera said he was excited about the matching grant, and was grateful and proud of the decision by the Foster Foundation. He said it will help carry the community’s message that some had been “harping and screaming” about for years. This financial message of hope made him emotional.
“It’s one giant step,” he said through tears. “It’s a reality that is just around the corner.”
Javier Peña, past president of the Juárez Bar Association, said this was great news for the students in Ciudad Juárez who want to study law in the United States. He hoped that the school would open as soon as possible.
Among the elected officials in the audience were state Sen. Cesar Blanco and state Reps. Joe Moody and Vince Perez, who serves on the House of Representatives Higher Education committee.
After the meeting, Blanco said the philanthropic effort by the Foster Foundation will show the state Legislature that El Paso has “skin in the game.” Elected leaders, especially those at the top, want to see what the local communities are doing for some of these efforts. This will help him and other members of the El Paso state delegation to promote the law school.
“These matching funds sends a message that El Pasoans want this,” Blanco said.
The Legislature approved $250,000 in early 2023 for UTEP to conduct a Law School Planning study. The process was led by Andrea Cortinas, UTEP vice president and chief of staff.
Wilson’s presentation included that El Paso is the only major metropolitan area in the state without a law school. The closest is at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, about 266 miles away. The closest one in the state is at Texas Tech University in Lubbock about 343 miles away. The last law school to open in Texas was the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law in 2014.
According to the State Bar of Texas, there were 1,289 active attorneys in El Paso County as of a 2024-2025 report. This represents a 3% increase from the 1,247 attorneys in 2014. A little more than half of the attorneys are Hispanic.
By comparison, in 2024, 25,667 attorneys served in Harris County (Houston), and 6,635 attorneys served in Bexar County (San Antonio). The ratio of active attorneys to residents in El Paso County is one to 680. In Harris County it is one to 196, and one to 323 in Bexar County.
As of 2022, 35% of licensed attorneys in Texas earned their law degrees at an out-of-state institution. Of those who earned their degrees in state, most attended the University of Texas at Austin (19%), Texas Tech University (17%) and St. Mary’s University (10%).
The most recent American Bar Association National Lawyer Population Survey in 2023 reported there were more than 1.3 million active attorneys with 6% of them being Hispanic. In 2023, Hispanics made up almost 20% of the U.S. population.
With additional funds and the necessary approvals, it is possible that UTEP could make a formal request for a law school as early as 2027 and the school could open in 2030, maybe earlier. Wilson reiterated that the school could focus on international business law and the preparation of bilingual attorneys. She shared that there is an anticipated growth in the need for lawyers in El Paso and surrounding counties of 1% annually and 12% through 2034.
The Texas House of Representatives passed House Bill 3475, which asked the state for $20 million over 10 years to establish a public law school in El Paso County, in April 2025 and sent to the Senate on May 15 where it died. A spokesman for state Rep. Vince Perez, who represents El Paso’s Lower Valley and sponsored the bill, said Perez was pleased that the legislation made it out of the House with a good amount of bipartisan support.
Perez said after the meeting that he is confident the rest of the community will step up and take advantage of this matching grant. The feasibility study showed that there was a tremendous need for more lawyers in this region. He talked about the difficulty that the new district attorney and county attorney had in hiring qualified prosecutors because of the significant shortage of attorneys.
“Clearly there is not enough home-grown attorneys here available to meet the demand,” Perez said, adding that there also is a great need for bilingual attorneys. “There’s just not enough attorneys available locally.”
To earn American Bar Association accreditation, the law school would need a law library, moot court classrooms and a student study/gathering space. In the past, UTEP said it was studying possible locations for these additions.
The university acknowledged that any construction would need funds from the UT System. The estimated costs, to include such things as project management, insurance, legal fees and the like, would range from $60 million to $110 million.
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