A letter from the American Bar Association to CU earlier this year warned that the law school's accreditation could be in danger without more tenured and minority faculty, a better library and a new academic building.
State budget cuts have slowed hiring and kept the new building on the drawing board. It previously was scheduled to open in fall 2004.
A response to the American Bar Association is due in November, and a hearing is set for January.
"We're going to be laying out for the ABA some of the alternatives to getting the building," said CU Provost Phil DiStefano.
Alternatives for financing the building include doubling law school tuition to $12,000 a year in the next three years, getting an exemption from state constitutional limits to issue bonds for a building, and using certificates of participation, which are similar to a mortgage.
All options require approval by the state Legislature — and it appears that CU will need it, because the law school building is no longer on a funding wish list put together by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.
DiStefano would like the CU building back on that list, but commission leaders say that is not going to happen.
"There is no money for the law school, n-o money," said commission spokeswoman Joan Ringel.
Private donors have pledged $7 million for the project. CU plans to raise an additional $5 million to $6 million more in private donations. Law students pledged $7 million through a self-imposed $1,000-a-year tuition increase.
That leaves a $19.5 million hole that CU was counting on the state to fill.
"The only things being put on our list are life and safety issues, which is not the law school," Ringel said.
She added that the American Bar Association has never taken away accreditation because of an inadequate building, and she does not think it would happen to CU.
But "it can affect accreditation," said David Getches, CU's law school dean.
He said it's unlikely that the law school would lose its accreditation status, but probation is possible.
"We're a fairly extraordinary law school in terms of students, faculty and bar-passage rates," Getches said. "The building is our one major problem."
The American Bar Association called the 44-year-old Fleming Law Building "woefully inadequate" and said it has a "negative effect on the education students receive."
Third-year law school student Jared Seidenberg said its important for CU to maintain the standards of its law school.
"Whether they lose accreditation now or a few years down the road, my degree would be impacted by that," Seidenberg said.
