Appalachian School of Law
| ASL | |
 |
|
| Motto | Ex petra veritatis justitia exsurgit "From the Mountains of Truth, Justice will Flow" |
|---|---|
| Type | Private ABA-Accredited School of Law |
| Established | 1994 |
| Dean | Lucy S. McGough |
|
Academic staff
|
20 full time, 2 adjunct |
|
Administrative staff
|
50 |
| Students | 370 |
| Address |
P.O. Box 2825 Grundy, VA 24614, Grundy, VA,, USA 37°16′36″N 82°05′42″W / 37.27676°N 82.095038°WCoordinates: 37°16′36″N 82°05′42″W / 37.27676°N 82.095038°W |
| Campus | Rural |
| Colors | Green and white |
| Nickname | ASL |
| Website | www |
The Appalachian School of Law (ASL) is a fully accredited private law school on a four building campus in Grundy, Virginia, a small town near the convergence of Virginia, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The school offers a three-year Juris Doctor degree, and enrolls approximately 370 full-time students. The law school was founded in 1994 and it admitted its first class of students in August 1997. ASL was started and brought to Buchanan County, Virginia as a tool of economic development for the region. The school is fully accredited by the American Bar Association. ASL is notable for its focus to community service and leadership, emphasizing professional responsibility and alternative dispute resolution in its curriculum and requiring students to complete 25 hours of community service per semester in order to graduate. Each student is also required to complete an externship before graduation. According to ASL's 2013 ABA-required disclosures, half of the Class of 2013 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation. ASL was also the site of a triple homicide that took place on January 16, 2002. Princeton Review named ASL one of the 168 best law schools. According to law professor blog "The Faculty Lounge", based on 2012 ABA data, 38.5% of graduates obtained full-time, long term positions requiring bar admission within nine months of graduation, ranking the school 178th out of a total of 197 law schools in the United States.
ASL traces its roots back to 1993 when Norton, Virginia lawyer Joe Wolfe came up with the idea to create a law school in Central Appalachia. His idea was well received by local business leaders and a steering committee was founded in 1994 and grew to eighty members. The committee surveyed lawyers and found that legal education needed to emphasize professional responsibility and alternative dispute resolution as these pillars of law school were becoming more important in today's law practice. The committee gained permission from the Virginia General Assembly to start a law school in 1995 and continued to secure endorsements from local civic associations and industrial development authorities. Buchanan County, Virginia approached the committee in 1996 and offered the grounds and buildings of the former P.V. Dennis Elementary and Grundy Jr. High Schools to which the steering committee accepted.
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