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Welcome Message from the President
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Courting the American Bar Associaton
On September 27, 1979, I wrote a letter to James P. White, Consultant to the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. This time, I was writing on behalf of the Potomac School of Law.
I called his attention to the rules of procedure for law school approval that were published in 1977, which required that an institution considering the creation of a law school should first embark on a feasibility study. The parameters of the study were outlined in the rule.
Pointing out that Potomac was incorporated and opened its doors in 1974, three years before the feasibility study requirement was in place, I told him that I could find no record of such a study having been made at Potomac, but in light of the fact that none was required when the school was launched, and in light of the very obvious fact that the school had actually been organized, and had sustained itself as an unaccredited institution for several years, and the further fact that it had graduated a number of students who had taken and passed the Georgia bar examination, I wondered if it would not be possible for him to waive the feasibility study requirement.
Seemed like a logical request.
On October 9, Jim White responded in his usual fashion. His five page letter read like it had been composed by a computer program. In the middle of the second page, I found these enlightening words:
"A law school seeking provisional approval must complete and furnish, prior to an inspection visit, the following documents:
(2) A comprehensive feasibility study which was completed prior to commencement of a program of instruction…."
It seemed pretty obvious to me that any school started before the feasibility study requirement was imposed was effectively being told that it could never be eligible for ABA approval. A back dated feasibility study was not good enough, apparently.
I was undaunted. As a matter of fact, even before Jim White’s reply arrived, I had sent him another letter, this time formally requesting an accreditation inspection and enclosing the $2,500 fee required by the ABA rules. In it, I referred to my request that the feasibility study be waived. I also represented that we would shortly be sending a completed faculty self study as required by the rules.
On that latter point, I was perhaps a bit too sanguine. The Potomac faculty had been charged by Dean Kirk, months before I came on the scene, to conduct a self study and reduce their findings to a written report which could be sent to the American Bar Association as part of the school’s application for approval.
Nothing had been done on that score, and as near as I could tell, nothing would be done unless I lit a fire under the faculty.
Not that there was any want of flames emanating from the professors’ offices. In addition to formal resolutions protesting the tri semester system, and demanding that all past and current contributions to faculty pension plans be fully funded, there were memoranda urging the board of directors to fire the president since he had lost the support of the faculty.
Looking back, I can’t say that I ever really had their support.
I well remember a particular faculty meeting which extended into the evening hours during which, try as I might, I was unable to convince the faculty that there was not enough money in the bank to fund their take home pay for the rest of the current term.
I pointed out that the students owed over a hundred thousand dollars in tuition just for the current term, and that we had to collect at least $4,000 a week if we were to meet the payroll to Christmas.
Several outspoken professors made it clear that in their view meeting the payroll was my job. I simply had to find the money and write the checks. I told them that reliance on windfall contributions from donors to meet the payroll was no way to run a successful law school. I pointed out that Chairman Shirwin, whom so many of them had expected to bail out Potomac had not even come forward with the nine thousand dollars he so lavishly had promised to prevent one of my first lay off proposals.
That was about as confrontational a meeting as it has been my misfortune to attend. It ended on a note that left me deeply saddened, and reinforced in my mind the very real difficulties that arise when personal economic welfare comes up against the viability of an institution.
The next day I learned that Professor Robert McMillan, a new member of the Potomac faculty, had suffered a heart attack in the parking lot on the way to his car. He was dead on arrival at the hospital.
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This Page was last updated on:
07/21/2006