I attended Willamette for undergrad, and am going back to a T1 on the east coast for law school, however also lived in Texas so perhaps I can shed some light.
While Salem's not the most appealing of towns, at least Portland is 45 minutes north and Eugene an hour south. Lubbock is flat and isolated from Dallas. At least Salem has the pretense of a city, a real city nearby, mountains and the ocean. Willamette's campus is very pretty and the surrounding downtown is ok. There are also clinical options with the State Capitol being across the street, obviously not an option for Texas.
As far as post law school, TT competes with Texas, U Houston, SMU, Oklahoma and law schools of considerably higher quality than TT. Lewis and Clark as well as Oregon are closer in ranking to Willamette. The dean at Willamette's law school is from Harvard, and couldn't be nicer. Willamette's law school building itself is also relatively nice and expanding. I have no idea why they dropped to Tier 4, although I do hear there is a high attrition rate. Hope this helps. Again, go to school where you want to practice.