ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Daturday, Junw 29, 1996 TAG: 9607010061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: GRUNDY
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEMO: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.
A private law school being developed to help Southwest Virginia keep some of its brightest students was awarded a $280,800 grant Friday from the Appalachian Regional Commission.
``I am confident the establishment of the Appalachian School of Law will have a tremendous and positive long-term impact throughout Southwest Virginia,'' Gov. George Allen said during a campus dedication ceremony.
The grant will subsidize the costs of running the administrative and admissions offices when the law school opens in fall 1997. The campus, near the Kentucky and West Virginia borders, is being converted from a junior high school and an elementary school that have been closed.
``The coalfields of central Appalachia have suffered for decades from a lack of well-prepared leaders who are community oriented,'' said Lucius Ellsworth, president of Appalachian Regional Commission.
The law school will emphasize legal ethics and the practice of Alternative Dispute Resolution, a method of settling domestic and civil cases outside of court.
Norton attorney Joe Wolfe came up with the idea of establishing the law school after talking with pre-law students in his office.
The area is far from other centers of legal education.
The law school at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville is three hours away; University of Kentucky in Lexington, Ky., is four hours ; Washington and Lee University in Lexington is four and a half hours away and the University of Virginia is six hours.
``This project is a significant step toward the long-range goal of restoring the good name of Appalachia,'' said Wolfe, who traveled from his Southwest Virginia home to earn his law degree at UVa.
The nonprofit law school expects to enroll 350 students, 125 in the first year, with 18 full-time faculty members and 20 judges and lawyers from the area who will teach part-time.
LENGTH: Short : 45 linesby CNB