Monday, May 26, 2014

Good Things Happening to Good People: Charleston Profiteers and Indiana Tech's Newest Leader

1.   The Charleston Saga, Cont'd

In this edition of The InfiLaw Triumph:  The Charleston Saga, I give you this piece of muckrucking, capitalist-envy journalism:
Five respected judges and lawyers started the Charleston School of Law a decade ago with the lofty goal of training attorneys committed to public service.
But beginning in 2010, the well-connected founders and owners with deep South Carolina roots began draining money from the school, withdrawing $25 million in profits by 2013 that they split among themselves.
...
Their taking out the profits instead of re-investing in the school has left it in such financial shambles its future remains uncertain.
Jealousy is quite ugly.  It is particularly distasteful when it manifests itself in nasty hypocrisy.  The state had no problem licensing Charleston as a for-profit school and allowing these elite lawyers to peddle legal education for noble purposes as a way of enhancing their own investment portfolios and raking in a few million each in that sweet, sweet delicious and easy student loan-backed revenues.  That form of dragon-chasing was perfectly cool.

But now InfiLaw wants to show up and do basically the same thing, only with more opportunity for diversity and access to education, and suddenly a bunch of pseudo-employed jackwads decide to cry foul.

2.  The Lower Case Law Dean

In bittersweet news, Dean Peter Alexander suddenly resigned from Indiana Tech on the Friday before a holiday weekend.  Dean Alexander's tenure is to be commended.  Although naysayers said a law school in Fort Wayne would not work, Dean Alexander kept it going strong for a year.  In a time when most law schools were cutting back on enrollment, Indiana Tech went up +28 students or so.  And of course, let us not forget that Dean Alexander went head-to-head with the ignominious Paul Campos.

We wish him well in whatever BigLaw partner, elite foundation chair, judgeship, or other employment capacity to which he is moving.

But out of the burnt pit of sadness and despair rises of the phoenix of eloquent flame-throwing:
Indiana Tech announced andré douglas pond cummings, who does not use capital letters in his name, will serve as the interim dean at the school. 
Cummings is the associate dean for academic affairs and a professor of law at the fledgling law school.
Andre Douglas Pond Cummings, d/b/a andre douglas pond cummings, has risen from being a leading scholar in hip-hop and the law and serving youth in the Chicago ghetto to being a prestigious law dean in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Those of you who doubt there is karma and justice in the world, your faith, I'm sure, is restored.

3 comments:

  1. "We wish him well in whatever BigLaw partner, elite foundation chair, judgeship, or other employment capacity to which he is moving."

    I'm sure Skadden is chomping at the bit to get this legal heavyweight in a corner office on the top floor where he can earn millions and trillions of dollars with his skills.

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  2. Pond Scummings will doubtless spend hours in his office reading the Wall Street Journal and listinging to hip hop. Because that will get his "school" up and running, right?!?!

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  3. As the acting dean, Dr. Pondscum must now hire or appoint a new acting assistant dean. Isn't that how accreditation works?

    I wonder what kind of creature will be considered adequate to fill andre's vacated Reeboks.

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