Law Schools

A Eulogy For Savannah Law School (2011-2018)

Savannah Law School is survived by all of us who care when schools that shouldn’t close are forced to while schools that ought to close continue. 

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(Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Savannah Law School, a law school that began as a promise for a new vision for legal education, passed away recently.  While there is debate as to why it passed, my opinion is that it was prematurely killed due to short-sightedness.  Throughout its brief period of time here on earth, Savannah promised to be, because “of its clean slate and the once-in-a-lifetime chance to rethink and transform legal education,” the hope for the new breed of law students.  As its website points out, “Savannah Law School opened with the goal of being the ideal law school for the 21st century. With an emphasis on experiential learning, SLS’s hand-picked faculty bring years of real-world experience to the classroom to ensure that students not only learn to think like a lawyer but to actually practice law upon graduation.”

Killed abruptly in her youth, Savannah Law School indeed was living up to the potential of becoming a special place, as I have previously reported.  Its faculty members have been fierce on the scholarship front without having the luxury some schools have of limited teaching loads.  While not all its faculty are on SSRN, they rank 22nd — New Downloads Per Paper; 33rd — Total Downloads Per Paper; 64th — Total Downloads Per Author; and 40th — New Downloads Per Author.  Its faculty members have published in countless law reviews[1] and have written numerous books.[2]

Savannah’s faculty have appeared in Newsweek, The Washington Post, NPR, Georgia Public Radio, Slate, Huffington Post, Politico Magazine, Just Security, MSNBC, The New York Observer, CNN, and C-Span.  They have won the 2017 Derek Bell Award (AALS) and 2017 Society of American Law Teachers Junior Faculty Award.

Most importantly, the faculty gave.  And gave.  When budget cuts came, they sacrificed, scraped, and fundraised to maintain the standard of education.  They sacrificed and sought to educate their students, as one would help a colleague.  They paid for students to go to conferences out of their own pocket.  I observed them doing this, without uttering any complaint, without seeking any reward, with pure selflessness.  I can only imagine how amazing the school would have been if it had been well-fed.

In response to this dedication, I cannot tell you the outpouring of messages I’ve received from students.  The alums and students at Savannah are fiercely dedicated to their school.   They are sad, betrayed, and angry.  But most of all, they are proud of all the accomplished.

I suspect that is why Savannah also leaves behind its best and brightest — its students.  They started a law review whose colloquia have captured interesting issues such as Reintegrating Spaces; The Walking Dead; American Legal Fictions; and Rise of the Automatons.  I have had to leave out the accolades Savannah’s students have received because it would fill several blog posts.  This, from a school that won’t see its 10th birthday.

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Also left behind are Savannah’s alums, 100% of whom who have a bar license are employed practicing law.  The first graduating classes saw rise to five federal clerks.  Graduates left Georgia to be employed far and beyond the Bible Belt. Aggregate data masks whether Savannah’s bar passage rate is higher than its sister school, but my intuition is the answer is obvious.

Savannah law school is also survived by her community, which benefited greatly from her presence.  Savannah’s students contributed thousands of hours to countless community organizations.  No part of the community was left unaided by Savannah’s students: Children, immigrants, the environment, animals, churches, veterans groups, the NAACP, families, the Salvation Army, the Girl Scouts, and many more groups benefited from students at Savannah who felt the need to be a part of the greater community at large.

Finally, Savannah Law School is survived by all of us who care when schools that shouldn’t close are forced to while schools that ought to close continue.   As one of its faculty members wrote, “To what we built and what could have been…”  Yes, dear professor.  A toast to what you are, to what you would have been, and to what you could be but for your current owners.

[1] Including Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Florida Law Review, Arkansas Law Review, Indiana Law Review, Loyola University Chicago L. Journal, Marquette Law Review, Washington and Lee Online Review, Maryland Law Review, British Journal of American Legal Studies, Intellectual Property Law Review, Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy, Perspectives on Urban Education, University of Penn Law Review Online, Seton Hall Law Review, Washington University Global Studies Law Review, University of Penn. Journal of Constitutional Law, Journal of Law, Property and Society, NYU Law Review Online, Mississippi Law Journal, University of New Hampshire Law Review, Texas Review of Law and Pol., University of Hawaii Law Review, Journal of the Legal Profession, Fordham Environmental Law Review, Case Western Reserve Health Matrix Journal of Law and Medicine, Georgetown Journal of Law and Modern Critical Race Perspectives, and Michigan State University Journal of Law and Medicine, to name a few.

[2] Savannah’s scholars have written numerous books, including Dobbs and Roberts on Remedies (West), Sustainability and Business Law (Carolina Academic Press), Color Me Secured (Peter Lane Publishing), Federal Courts: Context, Cases and Problems (Aspen Publishers), Remedies: Cases and Materials (West Group), and Under-Housed: How America’s Poorest Citizens Live in the Shadows of Property (Cambridge University Press — Forthcoming).

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LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top-100 law school. You can see more of his musings here.  He is way funnier on social media, he claims.  Please follow him on Twitter (@lawprofblawg) or Facebook. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com.

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