Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Search The following interview is the fourth in a series of 10 articles highlighting prominent schools and departments within USC. . Robert Foster, Dean of the Law Center talks about his school and its ad vancement. BY BOB BAKER Editor-in-Chief Q. Dean Foster, what is the. function of the USC Law Center? A. The law center's function is to serve as a professional graduate school responsible for replinishing the bench and bar of South Carolina for the future and to provide a base for the wide diversity of options open to the legal profession outside the state. I see its function as being that of a service-oriented mission which includes continuing legal education for the bar of South Carolina. It's a matter, and I like to use the old cliche, of seeing our graduates change from "law students to students of the law." The con tinuing education program helps practicing lawyers to keep abreast of any changes which might be occurring in the field of legal studies. It also helps the layman, not connected with law, through institutes for public ad ministration, counseling, and labor arbitration, and involves the Center's capacity to reach out to all people around the state. In addition to all of this, we have a number of outstanding resources Histori SPECIAL FEATURE In preparation for the United Stat4 Susan Cate of the GAMECOCK researching USC's history. Below hs series of articles. This one deah ministration of Robert Barnwell (1 BY SUSAN CATE Of The Gamecock stafi When the Board of Trustees took a at the sad condition of the South Care 1834, they asked the whole faculty started all over again. With no president and only 20 rema the Board decided a little re-organ iza for. Robert Henry, serving as pres pore, and four faculty members remain until the College could elect a the following year. After the explosive administrati troversial Thomas Cooper, politicia wanted someone of unquestionable could have founid no one better to I than Robert Barnwell, a graduate of native South Carolinian. Barnwell, gqve them little to fear for he v Episcopalian, a Southerner, and mo large slave-owner. Barnwell's emphasis on the need< book collection prompted the buildlh Caroliniana Library, probably the fi the U.S. to be used solely as a colleg reading room is a model of Bullfint Congress Room in Washington D.C. Well's influence, at least $3,000 For Ac Dean Robert Foster which are leading us to research in law reform for South Carolina. I guess our principal point in being here is the obvious educational mission the law center fills by being the only institution for legal instruction in the state. Our graduates are constantly assuming leadership roles and respon sibilities as they enter the main stream of society. Their decided roles in life and the matter of how well our faculty does in its job essentially determines the bar of the future. And it's a very im portant mission we fulfill, because the education we provide dictates a matter of public trust from every citizen toward our graduates. Q. Just where do you think USC's law center is in reference to 0 Behin Par1 by 1850, with ovf larger than the 4 !s Bicentennial, Caroliniana Libr itaff has been libraries in the So the fourth in a nation. with the Ad- Elliott, Pincki 35-1841). constructed duri needs of the expi Barnwell's admit 6'9" brick wall at the wall did littl toenand Ro ere Fterav lawrefrmforSoth Colina. Law gues ou prnciatl35 ponri studer hereni studes obvious educeta msion th lall ceer 0fill cbot bing r tem only istutinform,ga inruaskedto thergotte. Our graduaesdenstscaly hassuitsner leaersip olstudespo mn sibliieo they ntuner the man sra ofh sit ahidcedt roles.i lifeyadtemttroo wll or facltydos nts regb esetdina1835 deriesogi the o tiportant, iss onexlil,teca.Use theeduatin wpovideuctates aM mat of publicutrutho vr eQlibrary.heresdenyu tHi h's lary cete Coisians ern to Une Bar-ehrlmnint starteda ben librarie bulingse need offok n the e xpa ademic other law schools in the nation, and what direction does the Center hope to take in the next five years? A. I imagine by the title of this column, you are interested in where the law center is in reference to other law schools noted for their academic ex ~ cellence. Probably the best way to determine where we are is by taking all the components which make a prominent law school and attaching their meanings to USC. Of course, there are many com ponent parts of an outstanding law school. First, the physical facility is important to some extent in con tributing to what makes a school outstanding. Comparing the facility we had four years ago to what we're doing now is a fair indication of what direction we are headed in. I am naturally biased, but would have to say that without a doubt we have the finest physical facility -of any law school in the nation in both size and flexibility. Now the second ingredient necessary for an outstanding school is probably the library. Everything we do in the center is subject to our research facilities. Probably the roughest way to compare libraries today is by volume count. Again, I think a comparison with the past makes a point. Four years ago in Petigru we had a shelf count of 75,000 volumes. Right now we have around 165,000 volumes. By just about anyone's figures this makes us the fastest growing low library in the nation. We owe a lot of thanks to the General Assembly for a special appropriation to help us d USC: Four !r 18,400 volumes, the library was >ne boasted by Princeton. South iry was ranked one of the two top uth as well as one of the best in the niey and Lieber Colleges were ng this time to accomodate the anding faculty and student body. uistration also saw the building of a -ound the main campus. However, [e to curb the wanderings of the mply climbed over it. age trustees decided their students gant by 19th century standards, so of 1836 set the yearly expense limit it (excluding room and books) and money. Students could not spend ing and they were made to wear a a requirement that was soon aegislature decided the students' not befitting of that day either, so I forbidding the sale of liquor to rs--a law that has remained, yet ipus wall has seldom proved to be e Carolina student. irements were raised and the s lowered from 15 to 14 years in resence of a freshman class. The im requirements were virtually n obtaining a bachelor's degree a iapply after three years of worthy aster's degree would be granted ~complished during Barnwell's estored the faith of many South e College, uplifted the dwindling gated the construction of well and began what has been termed of the South Carolina Conllee Excel11 pull ahead. I think if we had even more resources, we could have a library the size of any prominent law library in another few years. Probably the third ingredient to what we have been talking about is the quality of the student body. By quality, I'm thinking in terms of the objective standards used such as the Law School Admissions Test and a student's college record. The overall levels of both these stan dards has increased rapidly in the last several years at USC, as the Center has increased its selec tivity. This phenomenon has come about by an opportunity we've had partially related to the increased demand the law profession has placed on law schools. We've added a rather innovative program here at USC which has been developed for this state only. It involves taking about 100 marginal and equivocal students in the summer whose test scores and college records may not be in the tops of the entering class. We give these students a seven weeks trial to see if the students can handle the work necessary for law school. For the most part, those who have passed this session do very well in the rest of their law school careers. Now the fourth quality of an excellent school, and probably the most important, has to do with the quality of the faculty. I think that over the past few years we have been able to attract some of the finer faculty prospects 'in the nation. Our goal is to maintain a faculty second to none in ex cellence through both recruitment and retention. None of these components singularly determines excellence, nor do they tell you how to achieve it. In 1970, a study called "New Directions in Legal Education" outlined what we are doing at the University and where we are headed. This report, developed almost completely by faculty, tried to retain what is good with the old USC law school and to substitute those traditional and inert areas of instruction with innovative and relevant curriculum to better prepare our graduates for the profession. Afterwards, the enlightened processes which followed this study involved faculty playing a predominant role in curriculum development for the law center. The results of the study and the new directions of the law center especially some of the innovations developed, prompted a member of the Sopthern Association's ac crediting team to make a couple of remarks which I feel adequately describes what we've been trying to do. The first is that the USC Law Center has "produced probably the most constructive plan for overhauling legal education in the United States today." Secondly, "The chance for the University of South Carolina to gain national and international esteem through the efforts of its Law School is a genuine reality." We are very proud of those two statements. We have really overhauled our curriculum to the point that casework is not the main source of one's legal education at USC. There is an old cliche in law schools that in the first year you scare students to death; in the second year you work them to death; and in the third year you bore them to death. Now, I believe that casework is an excellent method to use in the first year or even the first eighteen months of one's schooling because it gets students to thinking about how ... ce appelate courts really are. However, I think that casework often reaches a point of diminishing return. So in the last half of a student's curriculum, we conduct small seminars in which students can engage in factual problems as he will face in the process of law. The faculty person in his supervisory position often serves as a senior member of a law practice so that his partners (the students) could more easily realize the kinds of situations they'll be in in later years. This method in volves much problem solving and can only be done in small groups. We are probably the only school in the nation which has gone as far as we have in curriculum changes. It is a curriculum plan which other schools have looked at. Even we are restrained from developing this program even more fully. Our poor faculty-student ratio is highly responsible for this. We are not getting enough money in formula funding from the Commission on Higher Education as I think we should be getting. I think the ideal ratio should be around 15-1 and a good ratio to be 18-1. Anything less than 20-1 makes it almost im possible to go any further than we have. Q. In short then, the law school Is trying to achieve their own national prominence by not so much doing what other schools have done but by developing their own unique and innovative programs, right? A. I think one of the real dangers of any school is that it should not follow a standard mold set by other schools of prominence. For in stance, it would be highly inap propriate for us to try to duplicate everything Harvard does. The best way to achieve prominence, I think, is to identify our goals and then try to improve on those sole objectives. Harvard has prominence because their faculty publishes major treatises in the field. We realize the benefit of having this kind of faculty, and we also try to recruit the kind of faculty who can conduct this kind of scholarly work. Part of the problem to developing a program of ex cellence is being able to attract the right people here. We need to get funds for endowed chairs which can get top people here.We need to solicit more funds, and the state and bar need to do as much as they can to help us. Let me reiterate that no law school can be any better than its faculty. No law school, despite great existing components, is of any value unless the faculty is there to put it all together and make it work. Q. How long do you think it will be before the Law Center has the national prominence of those law schools at Harvard. Yale, Columbia, or Michigan? A. I think there is a substantial lag between what has been done and what has been recognized. Things we did five years ago are just now bringing us into the national forefront. We started a real growth posture in 1970-71. Our faculty has increased by 11, and a majority of them are young. We see their presence here as lending an exciting new atmosphere to the idea of legal education. The processes we take in the next few years will need time to get recognition caught 4p with them. If I had to say when we'd be at another plateau in our quest for excellence, it would probably be in three to five years.