Times-Union staff writer
At this year's orientation to Florida Coastal School of Law, Chancellor Don Lively told students they had enrolled in a bottom-tier institution -- not exactly motivating words to hear on the first day of school.
Or were they?
Jacksonville's only law school, now eight years old, has a sale agreement in place with an out-of-state investment firm that envisions moving it to among the nation's best law schools. Lively told students the school is on the "front wave" of changes in legal education. He envisions new markets, a global reach and a distinct identity for the nation's only fully accredited for-profit law school.
The sale is the biggest change facing Florida Coastal since it earned full accreditation from the American Bar Association one year ago. But it's not the only thing students and administrators are grappling with.
In the past year, Florida Coastal has gone through three deans and is searching for a fourth, enrollment has tested the capacity of the school's Beach Boulevard office park, and complaints about communication between students and administrators have strained their relationship.
The changes have been unsettling, some students said.
"I think that will raise the eyebrows of most people, and it did with the students," said Charles Emanuel, a third-year law student and former president of the Black Students' Law Association. "It's the timing, everything happening at once."
This past week alone, the school hosted its prospective buyers as well as a fact-finding team from the ABA, which must approve the sale.
The buyers are Baltimore- and Chicago-based Sterling Partners, a firm that deals in buyouts, venture capital and real estate. One of Sterling's best-known investments was Sylvan Learning Center.
Sterling principal Tom Wippman called Florida Coastal "a less risky opportunity" than others because its foundation is established.
"There's not only a huge need of private funding of education, but it's good opportunity for capitalists," Wippman said.
Florida Coastal's current owners have reinvested all profits in the school, Lively said, but now want to cash out and hand ownership to a better-financed group. The sale is expected to be completed by January.
"If the school is going to get beyond the founding stage, it's going to need new owners," Lively said.
Neither side disclosed financial details of the sale.
The hope is that with deeper pockets the school can expand its offerings and improve from one of the nation's lowest-ranked law schools to among its best. Currently the school ranks in the fourth tier, which is the lowest designation in the widely cited U.S. News rankings. Five years from now, Sterling wants the school to move to the third tier, and in eight years move to the second tier.
The school will continue to create its own niche by tapping foreign markets, offering online courses and working with law firms to offer seminars to businesses on specific topics, such as avoiding sexual harassment in the workplace.
The sale also could mean a new home for the school. Enrollment reached 694 students this fall. The first-year class is the largest ever, at 306 students. Last year the first-year class was 190 students. Sterling has requested proposals to identify possible relocation sites.
Getting Florida Coastal to the next level will be the job of a new dean, which Wippman calls, in the language of business, the school's chief executive officer.
Dean J. Richard Hurt left Florida Coastal in February to take the same job at Barry University in Orlando. Professor Paul Hendrick replaced him as interim dean but left the job about a month ago to return to the faculty. Professor Dennis Stone currently holds the post, but a search committee that includes representatives from Sterling is seeking a new dean with the help of search firm Korn/Ferry International.
Administrators have struggled to keep students informed while negotiating the sale. Things came to a head when administrators hastily called a meeting this spring and confirmed owners wanted to sell to Sterling. Rumors about a sale had been flying for weeks, and the standing-room-only meeting resulted in some testy exchanges.
"There have been some issues in the past whether students trust the administration," Emanuel said. "Since then, I think the administration has done a good job of keeping students informed of the direction they're going."
The tumult doesn't bother all students.
"All that matters to me is I graduate and get a good job," second-year student Geraldine Durrett said. "The school is starting to be accepted in the community and firms are hiring graduates. Whether the school is up for sale doesn't matter to me at all."
That makes sense to Rick Matasar, dean of New York Law School and former dean of the University of Florida Levin College of Law. He compared the for-profit business model to the charter schools movement for K-12 schools.
"If the quality of what's being received by students is good and if they feel they've invested well in their education, the structure of their school shouldn't matter to us," he said. Matasar sits on the Florida Coastal's governing board, but does not have a financial stake in a sale.
With laptops open and thick law books stacked at their feet, students in an advanced constitutional law class this week discussed the landmark Dred Scott decision and the 14th Amendment -- meat and potatoes of any law school.
Lively, the professor, self-deprecatingly called the class "boring." That may be, considering where he wants the school to go.
