Thirteen years ago this week, The Amherst Student reported that the Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought (LJST) program received a great deal of support from a visiting committee of experts. Advocates of turning the interdisciplinary program into a "full-fledged department" were ecstatic over the committee's "highly laudatory" endorsement. In a report released to The Student, the committee expressed their belief that "LJST [was] already an excellent program offering an innovative curriculum and compelling body of intellectual work. … This program is superior to all other existing undergraduate programs in Legal Studies." The committee also noted that LJST courses "did not mirror law school curricula. [LJST] provides challenging intellectual avenues that complement but do not duplicate general law school scholarship."

Though the committee of outside experts was a promising development in the creation of an LJST department, the program's merit would still be subject to review by the Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) and would still be put to a faculty vote, which was to be held in November. The faculty vote would determine the future of the LJST program. It would either become a major, be abolished altogether or remain as it was.

Some students felt that with between a quarter and a third of College students attending law school after graduation, it was inadvisable for them to participate in the LJST program since they wouldn't be able to explore other academic fields. Most students, however, were eager for the LJST program to become a department and a major. Another concern that would need to be addressed was the allocation of faculty. At the time, two faculty positions were held by visiting professors Lawrence Douglas and Victoria Saker, and it was not yet certain if those positions would become permanent, therefore requiring permanent faculty members. There were also concerns as to what Professor of Philosophy Thomas Kearns and Professor of Political Science Austin Sarat would do if LJST was departmentalized. Both assured The Student that they would not leave their respective departments. "It's absolutely a non-issue," explained Sarat.