InfiLaw System pulled its application for a license to operate the Charleston School of Law on Wednesday, less than 24 hours before the S.C. Commission on Higher Education was scheduled to vote on it, The Post and Courier reported.

The commission had planned to decide the license Thursday morning. Its vote would have closed a monthslong, contentious debate over the future of the private, decade-old law school on the Charleston peninsula, according to the newspaper.

In a prepared statement, InfiLaw said it had temporarily pulled the application at the request of state Sen. John Courson, chairman of the Senate Education Committee. Courson wanted to give the commission more time to review new information and conflicting recommendations about the license, the company said.

“We want to give the commission additional time to consider and reconcile these issues, including responses to questions we submitted just a few days ago,” InfiLaw said, according to The Post and Courier.

The company said it is still committed to buying and running the school and intends to renew its application, the newspaper reported.

Conflicting recommendations

The commission’s staff had recommended granting InfiLaw the license. But on May 19, the commission’s Committee on Academic Affairs and Licensing voted 3-1 to recommend that the full commission deny it, The Post and Courier reported.

A majority of that committee agreed with commissioner Natasha Hanna, a Myrtle Beach attorney, that lawsuits against two of InfiLaw’s schools could cause problems for the company, according to the newspaper. Faculty members at its Arizona school had sued InfiLaw for breach of contract and defrauding students, and its Florida school had been sued over claims about its students’ success and job placement.

Kevin Hall, InfiLaw’s Columbia-based attorney, called the suits “baseless allegations” that were working their way through the courts. The first Arizona suit has been thrown out, the newspaper reported.

“We have not been successfully sued,” Hall said, according to The Post and Courier.

Commissioner Charles Munns, a retired Navy admiral on the committee, argued for approval, saying the lawsuits had not been proven.

“InfiLaw is qualified under our regulations to receive the license,” Munns said.

In his letter Wednesday, Courson asked the commission to postpone the vote until members had time to review the new information and an opinion from the state Attorney General’s Office. That opinion said the commission must base its decision only on stated, specific criteria, the newspaper reported.

Reactions

Commission Chairman John Finan said he had no details about why InfiLaw withdrew.

“Maybe they thought because they lost in committee they would lose with the full commission,” Finan said, according to The Post and Courier. “I just don’t know.”

What mattered, he said, was that the application had been withdrawn. “It’s a moot point,” Finan said.

John Robinson, president of the law school’s alumni board, said InfiLaw likely pulled out because it feared a denial.

“If InfiLaw thought they were going to win,” he said, “surely they would have gone ahead with the vote.”

A year of opposition

The school’s owners announced last summer that a sale to InfiLaw was in the works. InfiLaw runs three other law schools. Many students, faculty members and lawyers across the state have opposed the deal, arguing that standards are lower at InfiLaw’s schools and that a sale would diminish the value of a Charleston School of Law degree, The Post and Courier reported. InfiLaw has said it is the best option to secure the school’s future.

At a community meeting in Columbia on May 19, Hall said the school’s owners had taken around $25 million in profits since 2010 and that InfiLaw had advanced $6 million to some of them, according to several people who attended, the newspaper reported.

Faculty member Billy Want said the school had always been for-profit but was presented to the state and community as if it would essentially be run like a nonprofit.

“It’s a betrayal of the mission they stated when the law school began,” Want said, according to The Post and Courier.

The owners are split

Five Charleston judges and lawyers founded the school, which opened in 2004. Three owners remain, and they disagree.

Ed Westbrook has said he opposes a sale to InfiLaw and thinks the school should operate as a nonprofit, The Post and Courier reported. He could not be reached Wednesday.

School spokesman Andy Brack said the other two owners, George Kosko and Robert Carr, would not grant interviews, according to the newspaper.

When the sale was announced last August, Carr and Kosko said in a statement that a majority of the founders wanted to retire and that the deal was “part of a necessary succession plan,” The Post and Courier reported at the time.