I taught at an institution which was early in the process of starting a law school (which they eventually did). Everyone just saw it as establishing a giant pile of money which they could get their fingers into. The "institution" saw it as ka-ching ka-ching for the institution, as in it would make money overall, though I'm not sure why and that is unlikely to have turned out to be true. But more than that, every faculty member and administrator who thought they could glom onto it somehow (joint appointment, join the law school administration, etc.) correctly thought that they could enhance their lives and incomes greatly (salary increases, course reductions, etc.). Things are not going well for law schools now.
...adding, nothing against law schools, it's just that they're the extreme version of very bad trends in academia, which tend not to be covered because safe spaces at elite Ivies are more important topics of conversation.
