Law school has record number of fall applicants

The Charleston School of Law has received a record number of applications for the 2008-09 school year, Interim Dean Andy Abrams said.

So far, about 1,250 students have applied for 135 full-time slots, he said. That's up more than 40 percent from 870 applications last year.

The application deadline for full-time students is today.

The school will accept applications through May 1 from students who want to attend part time. Officials expect about 250 applications for 65 part-time slots, Abrams said.

The school "has been an incredible success so far," said Abrams, who took over as interim dean in December when former dean Richard Gershon stepped down to return to the classroom.

The school's board is developing a search process for a permanent dean, law school spokesman Andy Brack said.

Alex Sanders, one of the law school's five founders, said two controversies that stirred the state's legal community in the past several months had no impact on the Charleston School of Law. "The word is that this is an exceptional school," he said.

One of those controversies began in November when the state Supreme Court dropped a section from the July bar exam allowing 20 students to pass who had originally failed the test. One of those students is a daughter of a circuit judge and another is a daughter of a state lawmaker.

The court said it dropped the section due to a scoring error.

Eight of the students who passed after the section was dropped were graduates of the Charleston School of Law. The move boosted the law school's pass rate from 65 percent to 70 percent.

The other controversy came last month when U.S. Magistrate Judge George Kosko, who is a founder, investor and adjunct professor at the Charleston School of Law, was not reappointed to another eight-year term amid allegations he made disparaging remarks about women and Asians.

"For the most part, that stuff wasn't a big deal" third-year student Matt Kendall, who is editor of the Charleston Law Review, said of the controversies. "We have law school to take care of," he added.

Kendall's experience at the school has been great, he said. It has prepared him academically to practice law, and given him practical legal skills as well.

Kendall also appreciated the school's public service mission, he said. The school "emphasizes the law as a respected profession," he said.

Sanders said the school's emphasis on public service is unique and has drawn national attention. He said he was sure the message would resonate with a young generation of law students even before the school opened, and it has been "even more successful than I had envisioned."

Abrams said he thinks another factor contributing to the increase in applications is that students are now eligible for federal loans.

The school earned provisional accreditation from the American Bar Association in December 2006. Before that, students were eligible only for private loans, which require a stronger credit history.

Full-time tuition and fees at the private law school for the 2007-08 school year are $30,598.

Provisional status is the highest level of accreditation the school, which opened in 2004, could attain at this point. It has up to five years to earn full accreditation.

The school has addressed issues raised by the American Bar Association prior to it being granted provisional accreditation, including diversity, staffing governance and the library, Abrams said.

The school's Web site now lists 30 faculty members. Since the school opened, two faculty members left to pursue other opportunities, Abrams said. And it has recently hired two new faculty members, he said.

An association team will visit the school in October to continue the accreditation process, he said.

While the school struggled a bit in its early days to find sufficient classroom and office space downtown, it now has enough room to operate in four different buildings on the peninsula, Abrams said.

In addition to its Mary Street building, the growing school leases several other properties downtown, including space in the nearby Bell South building at Mary and Meeting streets, a building at 394 King St. and the former Chase Furniture building at 414 King St.

The school also owns a 1.25 acre lot at the corner of Meeting and Woolfe streets that it bought from the city of Charleston in 2004 for $875,000. The property was formerly owned by the Army Corps of Engineers; the city bought it for $1.2 million, then sold it at a considerable loss to the Charleston School of Law. The city didn't require the school to pay for the property for 10 years, and is collecting below-market interest on the loan until it's due.

At the time, Mayor Joe Riley said the loss was "a necessary incentive" to keep the law school on the peninsula.

"The school currently is developing plans for the property. We're considering a number of options but it is too early to discuss any of them in detail yet," said Ralph McCullough, one of the law school's founders and its managing director.

Riley said he's certain the school will eventually develop the land, and he thinks the city did the right thing in helping the school to acquire it.

It was "essential to the (school's) accreditation process" that it could demonstrate to the American Bar Association that it had room to grow, he said.

It was wise for the city to support the school, Riley said, because it's "a wonderful thing to have in that part of the city."

Reach Diane Knich at 937-5491 or dknich@postandcourier.com.