Member-only story
I Worked for a Predatory Law School
Does that make me a predator too?
Not many people get to start a library from scratch.
I did.
On June 5, 2006, I became the fourteenth employee, and first librarian, at the nation’s newest law school, the Charlotte School of Law.
Things were great for a while. Then they weren’t. My boss resigned after less than a year. I left two years later. Eight years after that, the American Bar Association placed the school on probation, after which it lost its ability to offer federal student loans. Finally, on August 10, 2017, the state of North Carolina yanked the school’s operating license, and Charlotte Law was no more.
Five years after its demise, stories of the school’s struggles are no longer newsworthy. Everyone has moved on. I, however, find myself still thinking about the experience. There is no question Charlotte Law was a troubling — some would say “predatory” — institution.
What I want to know is: am I just as evil for helping start it?
Charlotte in the mid-2000s was a city on the rise. It was the second largest city in the Southeast and boasted the fastest-growing metro area. Nine Fortune 500 companies were headquartered there, including the nation’s largest utility (Duke Energy) and second largest…
