Charleston School of Law professor Jerry Finkel was solemnly packing up his office on Tuesday morning after the long Memorial Day weekend, which his bosses kicked off by announcing that they were giving the boot to seven tenured professors.
“I believe it’s retaliatory,” Finkel said of the firings. “I don’t mind telling you that. People are probably going to be reading it in a pleading at some point. ”
Click here for a copy of the termination letter.
Finkel and five of the other professors who have lost their jobs had signed a public letter that was critical of the school’s two owners and their efforts to sell the private institution to InfiLaw, despite objections from faculty, students and alumni who view the corporation as a profit-driven diploma mill.
More than two weeks before they announced the layoffs, the co-owners, retired federal magistrates Robert Carr and George Kosko, called faculty members to the vacant second floor of the BellSouth building downtown and told them that the school was in dire financial straits and InfiLaw was their sole savior.
The InfiLaw deal also would make Carr and Kosko millions of dollars.
With Kosko standing silently at his side, Carr told faculty that “this has been a wonderful ride” and that “we are reaching the final hours.”
“There are no suitors, no white knights, no group of investors, no state colleges, no private colleges, either profit or nonprofit seeking the law school,” he said. “As we have said for two years now InfiLaw is and always has been the only viable option for the survival of the school.”
Before walking out of the room, Carr told the faculty members that if they wanted to save the school – and their jobs – they needed to publicly support InfiLaw. He and Kosko also issued a news release stating that the school could “not in good faith enroll another class,” triggering national attention and widespread speculation that Charleston law was on the verge of closure.
But the faculty held their ground and on May 22 Carr and Kosko did an about-face, announcing that they would accept first-year students in the fall.
“We thought it was a scare tactic,” said Finkel, who became a full-time professor at the school in 2007 and taught courses dealing with torts, insurance law, trial advocacy and evidence.
He added, “I really believe that in their heart of hearts they really saw it as an either-or situation and when faced with opposition they had to back up and punt.”
Honey, I shrunk the law school
Finkel and his colleagues were notified via email that their contracts would not be renewed around the same time that a spokesman for the school, Andy Brack, issued a news release on the afternoon of May 22 announcing the layoffs and the decision to keep the doors open for first-year students.
The other six professors who got the ax are Randall Birdwell, Elizabeth McCullough, Miller Shealy, Allyson Stuart, Billy Want and Nancy Zisk. Their departure brings the tally of staff and faculty who have left the school since May 2014 to 35.
“It’s been hard to lose these members of our staff and faculty,” Brack wrote in the release, “but it’s been a necessary business move to ensure that the size of the school is appropriate for the number of students we have.”
That leaves 23 professors, at least one of whom is going on a yearlong sabbatical, to teach about 400 full-time students and 180 part-timers, though those population numbers could dwindle significantly in the coming weeks.
“I anticipate that we will lose a considerable number of rising 2Ls to transfer,” said Matt Kelly, president of the school’s Student Body Association. But he disagrees with the school’s assertion that the remaining faculty members will be able to meet the students’ needs.
“You’re talking about a considerable change to the student-to-faculty ratio,” said Kelly, who reported that all the professors who taught tort law are gone.
Students, faculty have lawyered up
Disenchanted students are working with attorneys to put together a lawsuit alleging that the school is failing to deliver the level of education that it had promised to provide them when they signed up, according to Kelly.
Finkel believes they have a strong case.
“The most senior people [who have been let go] were the ones with the most experience. I’m not saying we don’t have some great young professors, because we do,” he said. “But a lot of the senior people are very good at what they do. This is going to leave a big hole.”
Finkel, who is in his 70s, said he’s too old to get involved with litigation against the school. But he added that some of the other professors who have been fired are talking with lawyers. One of the professors confirmed that a lawsuit was in the works, but declined to discuss the situation.
Tenured professors typically enjoy a high level of job security, but under Charleston law’s policy, which complies with the American Association of University Professors standards, their contracts can be terminated if the school declares financial exigency, meaning, essentially, that it is broke.
Finkel said the school made that declaration in December 2014, which was news to Julie Carullo, interim director of the state’s Commission on Higher Education. The commission approved the license that allows Charleston law to operate.
“They should have told us if that’s what they were doing,” she said. “The institutions we license, if they have significant changes they’re supposed to report that information to us.”
While Charleston law is still accredited by the American Bar Association, it is not obligated to tell the ABA when it is experiencing financial exigency.
Asked to confirm whether the school had, in fact, entered into a period of financial exigency, Brack replied in an email: “Thank you for your message.”
‘See how all this ends up’
Finkel said he and some of his fellow ex-faculty members believe that Carr and Kosko used financial exigency as an excuse for threatening and firing those who opposed the InfiLaw deal.
“It was pretextual. It was manufactured,” Finkel said.
He noted that Charleston law’s five founders, a group that includes Carr and Kosko, each received $5 million in payouts from the school’s surplus profits between 2010 and 2013, raking in a total of $25 million.
“The only good thing to come out of this is the school is not closing,” Finkel said. “The incoming class is coming in and the junior faculty who really need the income are still employed.”
But Finkel, referring to the pending litigation, added that the story is far from over.
“We haven’t written the last chapter of all this,” he said. “I’m going to sit on my dock, drink a Peroni and watch the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air and see how all this ends up.”
Follow Phillip Bantz on Twitter @SCLWBantz