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New Law School Hires
Two USC Faculty Members

TheState.com
September 16, 2003

The private Charleston Law School, which won't start until next year, is raiding the University of South Carolina Law School's faculty and staff.

One new hire is USC's longtime admissions dean, John Benfield.

Benfield, 47, will leave USC Oct. 1 -- almost at the beginning of fall semester, a crucial time for law school recruiting.

Another hire is Randall Bridwell, 57, a veteran professor of admiralty and maritime law -- a branch of law suited to Charleston, a major American seaport.

Neither Benfield nor Bridwell would discuss their new salaries, but they will presumably get significant pay hikes.

At USC, Benfield makes $76,886; Bridwell, $119,909. Benfield has been at the law school 14 years; Bridwell, 33.

Alex Sanders, spokesman for Charleston Law School, said his institution isn't trying to get a leg up on the 136-year-old USC Law School, the state's only law school.

"We are not in competition with USC for faculty or students," said Sanders in an interview from Boston, where he is a visiting professor at Harvard.

Nonetheless, the hirings show the new law school is moving fast to recruit a class of 120 law students for 2004. (USC's first-year law classes are about twice that size.)

The S.C. Commission on Higher Education granted the new law school a provisional license only two weeks ago.

The new law school is not expected to be an immediate competitor to USC -- it will have lower admissions standards and a far smaller faculty, for example.

But the hirings of Bridwell and Benfield indicate the new school -- like any private business -- won't shy away from going head-to-head with the state's established law school.

Benfield said he's leaving USC because, "It's just a great opportunity to be part of the creation of a new law school."

Bridwell, who will leave USC at the end of this school year, said he will have an opportunity to create a maritime law institute at Charleston Law School.

"It will be a real asset to the state and city," he said.

William Hubbard, chair of a committee searching for a new USC Law School dean, said change has a good side.

"Losing faculty creates an opportunity for the new dean to have more opportunity to recruit new faculty that bear his imprimatur," said Hubbard, a Columbia lawyer and member of the USC board of trustees.

Matt Bogan, 24, USC Law School student body president, said competition between law schools is healthy.

"When there's only one law school, there's no incentive to go beyond where we are right now and become a better school," Bogan said.