Association makes decision on Charleston School of Law non-profit status — what’s next

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The American Bar Association has OK’d the next step in the Charleston School of Law’s journey from a private enterprise to a nonprofit school.

J. Edward Bell III, the president of Charleston School of Law, announced in a news release Wednesday afternoon that the ABA’s Council on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar has “acquiesced” in Charleston School of Law’s application to convert to nonprofit status.

As the accreditor for the first degree in law, the ABA Council is required to “acquiesce” before an approved law school makes any substantive change, including a change of control or ownership, the news release said.

“The ABA’s acquiescence is effective immediately, although it is conditioned on approvals from the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education and the U.S. Department of Education,” Provost Larry Cunningham said in an email to SC Biz News. Cunningham also serves as dean and professor of law. “We will keep the ABA apprised of our progress. Under the ABA’s rules, they will also conduct a follow-up site visit to confirm that we remain in compliance with their accreditation standards.”

The law school will now file an application for a license with the Commission on Higher Education, the state licensing authority, the school stated in the release. In addition, Charleston Law will begin the process of securing the U.S. Department of Education’s approval.

Conversion to nonprofit status will involve the current owners of the Law School donating the school to an existing nonprofit, the Charleston School of Law Foundation Inc. The owners have pledged not to take any money from the transaction. Instead, they will donate the law school in its entirety to the foundation.

Charleston Law officially filed an application last October with the ABA Council seeking acquiescence in the conversion from for-profit to not-for-profit status. Cunningham testified before the council in February in connection with the application, the release stated.

“Converting our school to a nonprofit has been a key goal of mine since I became president in 2015,” Bell said in the release. “I am thrilled that the ABA has acquiesced in the conversion and grateful to everyone at the law school who worked hard on our application. Converting to nonprofit status is an instrumental step toward our goal of establishing a permanent home on the Charleston peninsula, which will be for the continued betterment of the community we serve.”

If approved, ownership will be transferred to the Charleston School of Law Foundation Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group. The foundation supports the study of law in the city, the mission of the law school, and its students through programs such as scholarships, its website says. 

“This is a significant moment in the history of our young law school,” Cunningham said in the release. “Becoming a nonprofit is in the best interests of students, alumni, faculty, staff and the community. We are grateful to the ABA for giving careful consideration to our application. We look forward to showing other regulators, including the CHE and USDE, that conversion will only strengthen the law school.”

According to the school’s official history online, several attorneys and judges began working in 2002 to establish the state’s second law school. The Commission on Higher Education granted a license in 2003 to allow the school to begin accepting students. The doors opened to 133 full-time and 64 part-time students in 2004.

Challenges to the school’s viability were brought to the forefront in 2013 when owners Robert Carr and George Kosko called a gathering of faculty to inform them that that the school would either have to close or be sold to InfiLaw, a Florida-based for-profit company that owned three law schools considered so-called “diploma mills,” including Charlotte School of Law, according to a 2021 news report in the Charleston Regional Business Journal.

Students, alumni and faculty pushed back — with two faculty members filing lawsuits — fearing that the sale would mar the school’s reputation and lower the standards of a Charleston School of Law education.

The turning point came in October 2015 when Bell, a Georgetown trial lawyer, stepped in as president and bought into the school, alongside Carr and Kosko, to save it from the sale to InFiLaw.

Since then, InfiLaw has gone out of business and all of its law schools are now closed, while Charleston School of Law years has clawed its way back from that brink of dissolution to strong enrollment numbers.

“Everyone here is supportive of the move to nonprofit status,” Cunningham told South Carolina Lawyers Weekly in November. “This is something that we’ve been discussing internally. The faculty are supportive. The staff are supportive. The students are supportive. … This is something that we’ve had as an institutional goal for some time.” 

The shift also will involve working with the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Education, the former on tax matters — Charleston Law now pays taxes since it is a for-profit entity — and the latter on federal student aid programs. 

Cunningham told S.C. Lawyers Weekly that there are two key benefits to the change: it will bolster the school’s academic reputation, separating it from those institutions accused of being “diploma mills,” and it will make fundraising easier as potential donors will be attracted to the tax advantages of giving to a nonprofit school.

South Carolina Lawyers Weely, a Bridge Tower Media publication, contributed to this article.