THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 22, 1996 TAG: 9606220250
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 38 lines
Regent University School of Law moved one step closer to full accreditation Friday when a second group of the American Bar Association recommended it.
The latest recommendation - from the ABA's Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar - is the last hurdle before a final decision is made by the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, which meets in early August, law school Dean J. Nelson Happy says.
``It took a tremendous amount of effort to get this far,'' he said Friday. ``We are excited. We had to wait almost two weeks to get the result. It was a tense time to see how it turned out. This is a tremendous relief.''
In April, a key bar association committee recommended Regent's law school for full accreditation. With the latest recommendation, it appears Regent may triumph in its nearly decade-long campaign to win total acceptance from the bar.
In 1989, the ABA offered the Christian law school ``provisional'' accreditation, saying the school would have to address concerns about finances and academic freedom before it could receive full accreditation.
For students, accreditation means they can take the bar exam anywhere in the country - an important prerequisite for a practicing lawyer. For schools, accreditation offers the profession's seal of quality.
The battle for accreditation has been linked with turbulence in the law school's short history. Its founding dean, Herbert W. Titus, was fired by Regent's founder and chancellor, Pat Robertson, in 1993. Titus' supporters had said the religiously conservative dean was cast off to persuade the ABA that the law school was mainstream. Titus' critics said he was authoritarian.
Happy said Friday that the school has strengthened its library facility, added faculty and adopted a tenure system designed to produce excellence.
Ninety percent of Regent's graduates in December 1995 passed the Virginia bar exam. The school has 1,400 students.
KEYWORDS: REGENT UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL by CNB