NEWS - Education & Colleges

By Lou Phelps, SBJ Staff

Dec 12, 2011 – Last week’s news that John Marshall Law School was expanding to Savannah was welcome news on a number of fronts.

The law school will bring welcome jobs – good paying jobs. It will also bring an outstanding crop of law clerks for judges, area District Attorney’s offices and law firms from the student body, a resource not available year-around to the legal profession here.

And, it will offer students in the 21-county Coastal Georgia and South Carolina area an opportunity to do post-graduate work close to home, family and jobs.  The Savannah campus of the new law school will offer both day and evening classes.

The new school will called The Savannah Law School (SLS), according to Dean Richard Lynn who will initially serve as the Dean of both the Atlanta and Savannah campuses.  The announcement was released after the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Council on Legal Education and Admissions approved John Marshall’s application to open a branch campus in Savannah beginning next Fall 2012.

In Georgia, there are currently five places to get a law degree: in Macon at Mercer University, in Athens at UGA, and at Emory, Georgia State and John Marshall in Atlanta.  “None of the other schools have any interest in expanding, or they do not have the space. We are the only school that is interested in expanding, and bringing our school to areas in Georgia to serve future students as Georgia grows," said Dean Lynn.  Many students go out of state to get a law degree, he explained.

According to Dean Lynn, “We do have the highest percentage of African American students at John Marshall in Atlanta, but that is not a demographic goal in Savannah, necessarily. We feel our student body will reflect the area. We’re not doing anything special in recruiting beyond connecting with all the schools in Southeast Georgia.” 

Their research indicates that about 2,000 students took the LSAT exam this past year alone from the 21-county area of Savannah and Coastal Georgia to attempt to get into a law school. Very few of those students are going to school in Atlanta, he said. “They’re going to schools in Florida and the Carolinas, so we think this will be an option for people who want to go closer to home. We feel there is going to be a demand for the law school to justify investing in Savannah.”

“There is a natural connection between Savannah and John Marshall, which operated a branch campus in the city in the 1970s and 1980s,” said Lynn.  “Both campuses share in the mission to prepare professional lawyers who possess a strong social conscience, who continually demonstrate high ethical standards, and who are committed to improving both the legal system and society as a whole.”

More than 20 colleges and universities in the region will serve as feeder schools for SLS’s full-time program, including Armstrong Atlantic State University, College of Coastal Georgia, Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia Southern University, Savannah State University, South Georgia College, Middle Georgia College, South University, the Savannah campus of Georgia Institute of Technology and several others, added Lynn.  Additional feeder schools located only a couple of hours from Savannah in South Carolina and Northern Florida will also help to generate students, he believes.

And, SLS’s part-time evening program will be ideal for area doctors, retired military, paralegals, law enforcement and others interested in pursuing a legal education, Lynn adds.

John Marshall is owned by several family trusts that purchased the law school in 2001 when it was on the brink of financial collapse.  “They concentrated the first few years on gaining full American Bar Association accreditation.” Lynn states. He was then hired six years ago, and since then, John Marshall has tripled its student body and doubled it space, and now produces an operating profit.

Dean Lynn envisions a five-year plan of expanding the school to 450 to 500 students, with 30 law professors and 30 to 40 staff members. “Those are pretty good jobs, so we will contributing to the City of Savannah in that way, as well,” he adds.

SLS’s first class, to be admitted as of August 2012, will accept 60 full-time students and 35 part-time, evening students.  Each year’s class will add the same number. bringing the total enrollment up to the 500 range within five years.

Part-time evening students will be able to earn a law degree in four years, but that will include attending evening classes even during the summer. “The evening students are the most motivated – they know why they’re there,” said Lynn. “They’ve very knowledgeable, interesting students.  We’re just sort of in awe of them.”  

Within the next week, Dean Lynn anticipates announcing the new school’s campus location in Savannah. “There are a couple of locations that we like a lot.  Ideally, we would be downtown and close to the Historic District…close to the courts, in a safe location for students, and with access to public transportation,” he said.  A decision has to be made in order to gain permits for renovations and complete changes to the space they acquire to be ready by next August.

“We will eventually need 60,000 sq ft, but will open with 30,000 sq.ft. at first. So, we need to go somewhere that is expandable,” Lynn adds.

John Marshall Law School is a private, for-profit law school founded in 1933 and is fully accredited by the American Bar Association. John Marshall Law School was named in honor of the notable chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Beginning Dec. 15, 2011, students can apply via smart phone/tablet at m.savannahlawschool.org or on the internet atwww.savannahlawschool.org/apply.