The owners of the Charleston School of Law said Wednesday that they intend to sell the private school to InfiLaw System, a for-profit company that runs three law schools in other states, The Post and Courier reported.

The price was not disclosed. The sale would take effect only after the S.C. Commission on Higher Education and the American Bar Association approve it, a process expected to take months, according to the newspaper.

“We made this decision because a majority of the founders had expressed a desire to pull back and retire,” Robert Carr and George Kosko, two of the remaining founders and directors, said in a statement, according to The Post and Courier.

“As a result, this transaction is part of a necessary succession plan that ensures that the Charleston School of Law will be viable and thrive over the long term,” they said.

From management deal to sale

InfiLaw entered the picture in late July. On July 25, the school announced a management services agreement with the company, an arrangement that sometimes can be a first step toward a sale, The Post and Courier reported at the time. InfiLaw then owned Charlotte School of Law, Florida Coastal School of Law and Phoenix School of Law, according to the newspaper.

That week, Alex Sanders, one of the school’s five founders, said he was no longer chairman of its board, a board member or a co-owner.

Sanders said then that “to sell a law school is a complicated thing. It could take months or years. It’s not like selling a loaf of bread,” according to the newspaper.

This week the arrangement became a planned purchase.

Why InfiLaw

Carr met with students to answer questions about the sale. He told them InfiLaw was the best option because conditions in the school’s license agreement with the Commission on Higher Education barred it from talking with other state schools about a merger, The Post and Courier reported. Some lawmakers had suggested the College of Charleston take over the school.

Carr also said trying to go public through other means was not an option, because the financial and political climate in South Carolina does not favor adding a second law school, according to the newspaper.

“Infilaw was the only option viable out there,” Carr said. “The only one that would work, the only one we had confidence in.”

Asked about the price, Carr told The Post and Courier that it was “not a legitimate question to ask” because the parties are in private business.

The owners’ statement left room for other bidders, such as businesses, private groups or nonprofits, as long as they came with “well thought-out and financially viable offers,” the newspaper reported.

Questions from Columbia

At least one state lawmaker expects trouble with the approvals. State Rep. Leon Stavrinakis, D-Charleston, said InfiLaw, and what the school might look like after a sale, could be inconsistent with criteria the Legislature set to keep higher education affordable and of high quality, The Post and Courier reported.

Tuition at the Charleston school runs about $38,000 a year, according to the newspaper.

Students and faculty

Word of the sale spread through the school Wednesday. Some students worried it could turn the school into a “diploma mill,” pointing to what they see as poor performance at other InfiLaw schools, The Post and Courier reported. Others questioned whether small things, such as repairs to broken copy machines, would be handled quickly if fixes had to go through a corporate chain.

“We get ‘PR’ (public relations) lines whenever questions are asked,” said Matt Kelly, a first-year student from Savannah, Georgia, one of about 40 students at the question-and-answer session, according to the newspaper.

School officials tried to calm the fears of faculty and staff, the newspaper reported.

“This school is too important to all of us to see it undone,” Dean Andy Abrams said, according to The Post and Courier. He said there had been no discussion of changing staffing levels, and that he had recently signed another five-year contract as dean.

Peter Goplerud, president of InfiLaw Management Solutions, said the company is committed to keeping “the faculty, the culture, the commitment to the community,” according to the newspaper. From a business standpoint, he said, “we would be absolutely foolish to tear that apart.”

The school and InfiLaw have a relationship that goes back years, including discussions on operational matters, The Post and Courier reported.

The school

The Charleston School of Law opened in 2004 and enrolls about 600 students, The Post and Courier reported in July. Its main address is 81 Mary St. downtown, according to its website.

Five Charleston judges and lawyers founded it: Sanders, a retired chief judge of the S.C. Court of Appeals and former College of Charleston president; retired U.S. magistrate judges Carr and Kosko; law professor Ralph C. McCullough II; and attorney Edward J. Westbrook, according to the school’s website.

Earlier this year, the law school came up in discussions among Charleston Mayor Joe Riley and other leaders about merging the College of Charleston and the Medical University of South Carolina into a larger research university. School leaders said at the time that they were not part of those talks, The Post and Courier reported.