The embattled Charleston School of Law has a new part-owner who plans to turn the for-profit school into a nonprofit.
J. Edward Bell, a local attorney said he paid an undisclosed price to become one of three owners, along with founding partners, Robert Carr and George Kosko.
He said he is now president of the law school and managing partner of the company that owns the law school, and will pay himself $1.20 a year. His top priority is to covert the law school into a nonprofit entity. He also said he hopes to build a permanent campus in downtown Charleston.
The owners had previously tried to sell the school to InfiLaw Corp., which owns three other for-profit law schools, but that effort was highly criticized by students and faculty. The South Carolina Commission on Higher Education was expected to vote in June of last year not to recommend a license for InfiLaw to operate the school. But infiLaw pulled its application 24 hours before the vote.
That led to more turmoil for the struggling school, with one of the three remaining founders disagreeing with the other two about the future direction. Citing money losses, the school terminated 24 faculty members and announced iot might not enroll a class in fall 2015. It reversed course two weeks later
George Kosko and Robert Carr opened the school with three other South Carolina lawyers and judges in 2003. For a time, it thrived and the founders paid themselves $25 million in profit between 2010 and 2013.
In 2013, two of the founders wanted to retire. The founders entered into the agreement with InfiLaw, which reportedly gave them $6 million to buy out the retiring founders. That caused blowback by those not wanting InfliLaw to take over. InfiLaw has said that it no longer is interested in buying the school.
Carr and Kosko have said they want to retire from the school.
“That’s why they were anxious and willing to make me the manager of the company and president of the law school,” Bell told the local business paper. “They do want to step back.”
The school’s most recent leader, interim president Joseph Harbaugh, left the school after only four months. Former Charleston School of Law President Maryann Jones resigned last November after only eight days on the job. Prior to Jones, Andy Abrams served as the school’s president from May 2013 to November 2014. He remains dean of the school.
The school is facing a lawsuit from two of seven tenured professors it laid off in May. Former professors Nancy Zisk and Allyson Haynes Stuart filed breach of contract lawsuits. Zisk claimed the school let her go because of her opposition to the proposed InfiLaw sale. The school and its owners filed a counterclaim stating that Zisk and Stuart “sabotaged the transfer of the school to InfiLaw.”
