BIG GOVERNMENT STRIKES AGAIN …
|| By FITSNEWS || Faculty members at the Charleston School of Law (CSOL) are running out of time to keep their jobs as the school spirals toward closure, sources close to the institution tell FITS. In fact they were informed of the dire straits in which the institution currently finds itself at a meeting this week.
“Jaws dropped,” one faculty member told us. “I think it’s finally sinking in.”
What happened? Well, a deal was struck nearly two years ago for CSOL to be acquired by InfiLaw – which operates three other law schools across the country. However perpetual meddling in this private transaction has resulted in the company pulling back.
That means the school is unlikely to remain open … and faculty members are soon likely to join the ranks of the unemployed.
“They’re dust in the wind – unless they get behind InfiLaw and pretty damned quickly,” our source said. “They keep tilting at windmills that some sort of nonprofit savior or knight in shining armor is going to rescue them, but that’s just not in the cards.”
The owners of the school reportedly met with faculty and staff this week – telling them that unless a change of heart on the InfiLaw deal was quick and forthcoming, an announcement next week would be made regarding the admittance of a new class of students in the fall.
So yeah … it’s getting serious.
We’ve said all along the CSOL-Infilaw deal should go through – that government has no business blocking a transaction between two private companies.
Unfortunately meddling by one of the school’s former owners, Ed Westbook, combined with continued recalcitrance from faculty and students has gummed up the works. Last year, staff at the S.C. Commission on Higher Education (CHE) recommended InfiLaw be granted a license to run the school. Then state attorney general Alan Wilson said there was no reason for the CHE to deny a license to InfiLaw for that purpose – the last major hurdle before expected approval of a transfer of the school’s accreditation.
Of course that’s when CHE commissioners indicated they wouldn’t back the staff recommendation – prompting InfiLaw to pull its application, suggesting that it would refile at a later date.
Pro-free market lawmakers in the S.C. General Assembly rejected the CHE’s reversal.
“We understand that some parties are trying to use the licensing process to stop the sale of the Charleston School of law to InfiLaw in order to clear the way for it to merge with a state-supported school,” the lawmakers wrote last year. “We do not believe it is appropriate for the Commission to interfere with a private transaction under any circumstances, especially these.”
Amen to that …
In recent weeks, though, InfiLaw has backed away from the current ownership of the school after continued opposition from faculty and students.
The losers? Faculty, staff and students … and the local economy. The winners? Nobody …
“These pie-in-the-sky professors and students have been willing to throw a good law school under the bus and cause Charleston to lose an economic engine that pumps $40 million into the local economy just because they don’t like InfiLaw,” our source said. “They need to face the reality that if they don’t start supporting this deal, the school will probably close – and a lot of law professors will be looking for jobs.”
Hard to argue with that assessment …
63 comments
So now CSOL professors will be unemployed like CSOL graduates. Wait, CSOL graduates are solo practitioners, not unemployed. I forgot.
A deal could be brokered to merge with SC State…
So they could both go under together!
Law school ruined my life! I have no job and I have student loan debt that will follow me to my grave. Save yourself! DO NOT GO TO LAW SCHOOL.
If you’re that fucked then time to consider expatriation. Be prepared to be in a world of shit if you decide to come back to the states though.
Probably better than a lifetime of marginal existence as a debt slave though.
Saul Goodman had it right….mail order diploma with no debt….and then defend the guys with big cash, drug dealers.
Righto. There’s no one more pleasant to deal with than a desperate, broke, debt-burdened, pissed off attorney…
So much for that free market shit FITS touts all the time……………
That school was doomed from the start no matter what……
However, everyone knows the saying from the libertarian types: The cream always rises to the top”
Only thing is………The same can be said for scum too!!!!!
“So much for that free market shit FITS touts all the time……………”
If CSOL closes, that proves that free markets do work. There just isn’t sufficient demand to keep the school open.
That’s BS!
Apparently Infilaw ,a private company ,thinks the demand is there and wants to buy the school but can’t get a license from some government agency which U.S. required to operate it.
Get your facts together Moses!
InfiniLaw wants to open the doors to about 600 or 700 law students, part-time, full-time, regardless of testing scores or eligibility in order to make a profit. That is demand, just not a very good business model. InfiniLaw ought to be thanking their lucky stars.
Oh its a great business model…for Infinilaw.
For lawyers who don;t want to see their hourly rate plummet for suing insurance companies, not so much.
Well you see Ed that’s what the so called”free market” is about
MAKING MONEY!
Tell him Fits!
What?You believe these greedy bastards give a DAMN about anything else?
Lies, it stopped being a free market when the feds got in the student loan business.
InfiLaw already indicates they own CSOL. (Wikipedia listing)
InfiLaw, based in Chicago, owns law schools in Arizona, Florida and Charleston … and that’s it.
They did agree to some kind of oversight role several years ago.
Just leaked: InfinLaw’s Law School Application:
Name:
Can you qualify for a federally backed unlimited student loan? Y/N
Signature:
It appears they copied the USCe application.
Explains why so many clemson grads end up there.
Because Midlands Tech doesn’t have a law school… yet.
Oh he doesn’t believe that corny Free Market garbage.
None of these Republicans do.They just mouth it off.Show these greedy bastards a chance for a government handout and they’ll ve salivating about as much as Fits does when he’s perusing Hustler!
Exactly. Next we’ll see Fits complaining about how the failure to raise the gas tax will cost the state in economic development.
The winners: potential law students who will no longer find themselves in a ridiculous amount of debt to go to a half-assed law school designed only to enrich its owners.
The winners: the public, from no longer having 10 lawyers on every street corner.
The losers: the kids of already licensed lawyers who were too stupid to get in to any other law school and now will have to find another career choice or find an even shittier out-of-state school.
The losers: the parents of those kids who now are going to have to financially support these kids even longer than they ever planned on.
That first paragraph, are you talking about the school in Charleston or Columbia?
Both, I’m guessing.
Exactly. I try to talk every future law student I meet out of going to law school, regardless of what law school.
Problem is most can’t do anything else but sit in class.
High school with ash trays?
The winners: as you say, the public at large.
Corny old jokes:
What do you have if lawyers are buried up to their necks in dirt?
Ans. Not enough dirt.
What is the difference between a dead skunk and a dead lawyer in the road?
Ans. There are braking skid marks in front of the skunk.
Seriously, the worst that could happen is there might be a few less lawyers, and in the long run, is that a bad thing?
“….throw a good law school under the bus…” “Hard to argue with that assessment …”
Are you kidding me? You’ve been blasting the CSOL for it’s abysmal job placement rates, bar passage rates, et. al. for years… Now, in the interest of being free market and all, you agree it’s a good law school?
I agree the State shouldn’t me meddling in this, as it’s a private deal, but your hypocrisy amazes me. Maybe GT won’t notice, but anyone with a brain will. And FWIW, I hope they shut the place down….. too many lawyers creating too much competition, especially when a half baked atty hangs a shingle without a clue. Yep, I’m selfish that way – protecting my turf.
(And bf I get blasted, some CSOL students/grads are excellent and a tribute to the legal profession. And USC has more than it’s share of dumbasses. I wish they’d shut both down so I’d have very little to worry about with job security.)
Fits a Hypocrite?
Wow!
I hear Joe Riley wants to build another African American museum that noone will go to, so the main building will at least get some use.
Is that still open? I figured they’d have converted the building into a flea market by now.
If you don’t have the grades and LSAT score to gain admission to the third tier University of South Carolina School of Law then you should probably consider another career.
Another career? Like what? A g’ment employee? Shiite disturber? … Politician?
There is nothing more worthless than an unabled lawyer.
You just insulted all the newly graduated (as of yesterday) USCe law school graduates. I hope you don’t go to any of those new restaurants in the Vista, because they’re going to mess up your order or be slow in busing your table.
Libertarian pay and tip in cash. Republicans pay with credit cards and tip in cash. Democrats pay it all by credit card. Socialists pay with stolen credit cards and steal the tips from the other tables.
Out of work lawyers will learn more about the realities of life bussing tables than in the classrooms.
The best thing for the South Carolina legal community would be for USC School of Law to merge with Charleston School of Law. Move the school to Charleston, and close the school in Columbia (use the new building for something else at USC) and have only one law school in the state. The better locale would draw world-class professors who desire to live in Charleston. That would then result in a better law school, producing better lawyers. Additionally, it would result in fewer lawyers being put into an already overcrowded profession within the state.
But all those CSOL students still wouldn’t get in!! Which is all anyone was interested in anyway.
But Columbia is so beautiful! Why wouldn’t anyone want to live there?
They should have built it down in the Industrial Park next to the football diamond.
… Most sought after sporting goods: baseball bats.
Pumps $40 million into the economy? How much of that is funded by students via student loans that they will never be able to repay because they’re graduating with worthless degrees that only CSOL grads, CSOL grads parents, and certified retards consider remotely respectable.
There’s only room for one shitty law school in this state.
When did Clemson get a law school?
Typical response from a USCe Law School graduate. A Tier III law school isn’t much to brag about, it’s slightly above a diploma from the back of Rolling Stone magazine. Unless you graduate in the top 5 slots, you might want to start looking at office space in the local strip mall.
Squishy, you crack me up, in your hatred for USCe, so I enjoy pulling your chain. I graduated from Emory undergrad and University of Virginia law. You need to get a sense of humor, life is too short to be angry at those USCe people. You do know this blog you are reading is run by a USCe guy and not a Clemson grad.
Being a UV grad, that must mean you’re one of those high priced lawyers who thumbs his nose at those lawyers in strip malls from his office above the CVS.
Of course the threat of a mass firing is utter BS when there is easy money to be made by simply keeping the doors open, but that will nevertheless be enough to shut up the professors that wouldn’t dare risk their claim on said easy money. On the bright side they are about to give the students a free lesson in negotiations before they abandon them: those with nothing to gain and everything to lose are not very good negotiators.
“These pie-in-the-sky professors and students have been willing to throw a good law school under the bus and cause Charleston to lose an economic engine that pumps $40 million into the local economy just because they don’t like InfiLaw,” our source said. “They need to face the reality that if they don’t start supporting this deal, the school will probably close – and a lot of law professors will be looking for jobs.”
Hard to argue with that assessment
DA fug? Literally 95% of that economic development is in the form of taxpayer backed loans.
I literally cannot comprehend Fits’ positions here. It opposed government incentives that help BMW, Boeing, Sonoco create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic impact for the state- yet mourns the death of a school that leeches money from the government, creates less than 100 jobs, and impoverishes thousands. It’s completely nonsensical.
Many of his positions are dictated by Cato and/or people paying his bills. He isn’t bothered by the need to be philosophically/intellectually consistent.
I like this site for several reasons, the most important of which is his reporting/exposure of corruption – but he has either not able to understand or hasn’t spent the energy to understand/enact a consistent personal philosophy.
I still think he’s a decent human, just misguided at times. (like we all can be)
What exactly is so free market about a school that gets the vast majority of its tuition dollars from taking advantage of the fact that feds are willing to lend anyone with a pulse unlimited money to attend law school? Hey taxpayers, that’s money that you’ll ultimately be forgiving in 20 years, btw.
If we were truly operating in a “free market” here, then this sale wouldn’t exist, because law school as a business wouldn’t be profitable enough to support a venture like Infilaw.
And every time a law school is rumored to close all we hear is sob stories about the “local economy” taking a hit. Just ask the feds to write a check to the local government if you need the money that bad.
This could just be a negotiating tactic. Pretty typical threat. Give us what we want or we’ll shut down and all of you will lose your jobs.
My question is who owns all that prime real estate in downtown Charleston. Knowing Joe Riley, he probably didn’t bother to place restrictions on its use when he sold it to the founders of CSOL for pennies on the dollar.
I’m sure the professors have big 6 figure jobs just waiting for them in big law. The same ones they have tried to see their student on. Not! Most of them have minimal to no actual legal experience. This school and all the infilaw schools should close as well all there doing is ripping off the students and the American taxpayer.
I heard lawyers in Charleston complain about the CSOL, saying that really SC does not need another law school, that the State does not have the economy to justify and support a second law school. To me, that’s just fear of competition. I’m sure those lawyers see themselves the “winners” this article talks about. Other “winners” are the USC Law School students who will not have to compete for jobs with the newly CSOL graduates.
Ahhhh, but Alex Sanders got a job and a $5 Million payday – after Jean Toal had saved the accreditation for the CSOL with the Bar Exam scandal – which he gave to his grandchildren – whose father is U.S. Attorney, Bill Nettles – who now protects Jean Toal every chance he gets. South Carolina – Got to Love it.
This has been coming for a long time. The initial idea was flaky–pitch the new school as somehow more concerned about the public interest or social justice or something and then entice kids who simply aren’t smart enough to get into a real law school to go into debt up to their eyeballs to “learn” the law at what by all accounts was not more than a glorified bar review course. Then act surprised when these kids struggled to pass the bar exam or to get jobs if they did. But I’m thinking that the professors from USC who helped start the thing probably cashed out nicely and are watching the carnage from their comfortable retirement homes in Charleston.
So funny fits. You get us everytime. Charleston has a law school?! Yeah right. I almost fell for it.
So, its pumping $40 million into the local economy but going broke. And its going broke, going to sink/bust wash out get washed up BUT if infilaw is allowed to buy it (and push its lowly reputation even lower) that some how is going to mean unicorns, rainbows, endless profits, and the law school perpetually makes money and pushes money out into the local economy and the school is no longer tanking. Makes perfect sense. There’s NO WAY this is a rob Peter to pay Paul scam – couldn’t be.
Carr and Kosko are delusional, greedy, and two of the most despised members of the South Carolina Bar. At some point, they will probably be defending themselves from personal liability once lawsuits start flying. They created the problem and now threaten to close down the school. No one gives a rip about them, Peter Gopelrud, or Infilaw. Everyone knows they ruined it.
LOL………and like magic some sad real estate developers will swoop in and offer a swap for new digs up in the “Magnolia” neck Area paradise along the scammed Riley Trolley to Summerville. The professors and law students need to really get out a Google Earth map and drive around..!!