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South Carolina's Second Law School to Open
Associated Press

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- South Carolina's second law school, the Charleston School of Law, received approval from the state Thursday to enroll its first class in the fall of next year.

South Carolina's other law school is at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

The Commission on Higher Education approved a provisional license for the private school, expected to enroll about 125 students in downtown Charleston in 2004.

The school will hold classes in a building near the Charleston Visitors Center.

"We've had an overwhelming positive response to it," said Alex Sanders, the past president of the College of Charleston who chairs the new school's organizing committee.

Sanders says organizers have $2 million in the bank to launch the school.

"We had a lot to do educating people. Some people thought it was another school the state would have to support," Sanders said. "We had to make sure people understood it was private."

Tuition at the new school is expected to be about $25,000 a year. Sanders said the organizers have already committed $300,000 for scholarships and plan to raise more.

Last year, USC's School of Law received 1,715 applications, accepted 440 and enrolled 243. It charges about $12,000 for in-state students.

Richard Gershon, formerly dean of the Texas Wesleyan School of Law, will serve as the dean of the Charleston School of Law. Gershon recently helped Texas Wesleyan receive accreditation from the American Bar Association.

Charleston School of Law will also have to go through the accreditation process. But a law school can't apply for accreditation until it has been operating a year, said Sanders, also a former chief judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals.

Sanders said the Charleston School of Law will enroll lawyers "of the highest moral character and unquestioned integrity" and teach them the chief aim of a career in law is public service.

Sanders said the school will now begin recruiting students and faculty. The school will have one faculty member for every 18 to 20 students. It will start with six full-time faculty members as well as the dean and a full-time director of its law library.

The school also intends to remain in downtown Charleston, Sanders said.

"We want to be on the Charleston peninsula and the mayor wants us to be on the Charleston peninsula," he said.

The new school "will not only be a huge asset because of the training and legal services clinics, but it will also be a tremendous asset to the economic and intellectual vitality of our community," said Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.

 

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