Highlights

Campus News

Wildcat Weekly Minute for Nov. 17, 2011

A look at what's happening on campus this week.

Faith

Louisiana College ‘Voices’ along with LBC Call for an ‘Awakening’

Debut of project at Evangelism Conference

Sports

LC hoops teams wrap up homestand with pair of wins

Off to Ozarks, UT-Dallas next

Organizations

LC media student give to Toys for Tots

More than 100 toys will help local charity

Campus Life

February is Heart Health Awareness Month

Stay healthy and 'God Red'

Culture

All the Shakespeare you could laugh at… and more!

tlc's adaptation of 'Shakespeare Abridged' pulls out all the stops

Special Coverage

LC brings another successful ‘Follow the Star’

'Christmas on the Hill' and 'Gala' add to festive weekend

It’s official. Pressler Law School selects Shreveport

by Al Quartemont

LC's law school to be housed in downtown location (VIDEO)

He stood with a generations-old law book in his hand – the one his great grandfather had written many years ago. On Wednesday at the University Club in downtown Shreveport, retired judge Paul Pressler saw his own legal legacy handed down.

The law school that will bear his name under the academic umbrella of Louisiana College officially got a home, a 70,000 square foot building in the city's central business district – a building purchased for $3.1 million and donated to LC to become the site of what is nothing less than an ambitious undertaking.

“I'm overwhelmed,” Pressler said. “For (his great-grandfather), the law was not a set of technical rules whereby the calculating could trap the unwary, but the composite of principles of right providing for the orderly conduct of society and for the maximum and equal protection of the rights and liberties of all.”

It is with those standards in mind, Louisiana College is embarking on this venture to shape for the future lawyers and judges who will hold to the “Judeo-Christian” principles upon which many in the crowd of several hundred see America as having been founded upon. And if the coming together of all the pieces of this law school that were announced at the news conference were any indication, there will be no shortage of supporters who hold to that same view.

LC President, Dr. Joe Aguillard, presided over the news conference that unwrapped detail after detail that has the law school on target to beging with its first classes in August of 2012.

Among those details:

The location of the law school. In choosing Shreveport, LC is venturing past its home campus in Pineville to position itself in what school officials believe is a prime place for success. As several speakers pointed out, there are no other law schools within 200 miles of the city. The belief is that by placing the school in northwest Louisiana, it will draw students from throughout the Ark-La-Tex area. Aguillard said the decision was no slight to Pineville or Alexandria, simply a strategic decision. He noted that the college still plans to build its next project, a new medical school, in Pineville.

The building. In choosing the old CNB/United Mercantile Building on the corner of Texas and Market Streets, LC is putting the law school in the heart of downtown Shreveport. LC's Vice President for Institutional Advancement, Tim Johnson, said the final agreement on the building, built in 1904 and listed on the National Historic Register, came only hours before the news conference. The building was purchased by an anonymous supporter and then donated to the school at a value of $3.1 million. The 70,000 square foot facility is said to be already sufficient for start-up of the law school, but it will also see a major facelift internally and externally as more monies become available.

The locale. Being in the heart of downtown Shreveport, the Pressler School of Law will be within walking distance of all the major courthouses. In addition, school officials are looking at other nearby buildings and will work with city officials to develop a facility for student housing.

The future of the building. As mentioned, improvements are planned for the building. On the outside, an additional structure will be built on top of the existing parking garage, thus adding another 80,000 square feet. Eventually, according to the law school's dean, J. Michael Johnson, the facility will include a 34,000 square foot library that will be utilized not just by students but also the local law community, a 16,000 square foot lecture hall, 40,000 square feet of classrooms in additon to office space for administration and faculty as well as a parking garage. Also in the plan is a glass-enclosed basketball and tennis court area on the roof for recreation purposes – a component U.S. Senator David Vitter joked looked like something from “stimulus dollars.” Michael Johnson joked, “This will be the highest court in the city.”

Donations. Despite Senator Vitter's kidding, the LC law school will not require any public money. The initial donation of the $3.1 million building was also met by another $1.5 million in anonymous donations toward the start-up cost of the school. Dean Johnson said the improvments they have planned will cost another four to seven million but that they can all be phased in while the scool is in operation. Dr. Aguillard said that even as the news conference was taking shape Wednesday, more pledges were coming in, thus taking total donations so far to more than $6 million.

Future Donations. On hand for the news conference to present a check for $500,000 on behalf of his family's business was Chris Gorman of Gorman Family Enterprises. LC used that opportunity to announce that Gorman will become the founding chair of the law school's primary fund-raising arm, the ACTS Alliance. ACTS is an acronym for “a cord of three strands” - part of the scripture verse from Ecclesiastes 4:12 which says such a cord is “not easily broken.” Gorman said the three cords that will support the law school are justice, mercy and humility as spoken of in Micah 6:8. As chair of the Alliance, Gorman will work with the law school and LC officials to continue to raise financial support for the planned improvements. Dr. Aguillard noted that now that an actual location and building have been established, he fully expects more people will step forward to donate.

Time table. According to Dean Johnson, the next year will involve the continued hiring of administration and the development of the law school curriculum, thus giving time for renovations of the new building. In April of 2011, the plan for the law school will be submitted to SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools), the accrediting body for Louisiana College. The next year would then be dedicated to the hiring of faculty, completion of the curriculum and initial recruitment of students. Johnson said the first year for classes, starting in August of 2012, would see about 60 students with a gradual increase to 330 students by year three. By the spring of 2013, the law school will apply for provisional accreditation to the American Bar Association.

The dean. As mentioned, J. Michael Johnson becomes the first dean of the Pressler School of Law. Johnson most recently served as Senior Legal Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a national organization dedicated to a conservative application of constitutional law. Johnson spoke of having grown up in Shreveport and now getting the opportunity to work with the local law community. He said many local attorneys will serve as adjunct professors. But more than anything, he stressed the nature of the law school – that it will be one that, “will pursue academic excellence by use of a curriculum that acknowledges the Judeo-Christian heritage and moral foundations of the American legal system.” Johnson was joined at the news conference by his wife who is seven months pregnant. Aguillard quipped that they will name the child "Joe."

In discussing how all the plans came together, Dr. Aguillard also noted the relationship that developed between him and Shreveport mayor Cedric Glover and how that relationship was very much fostered with the help of Summer Grove Baptist Church pastor Rod Mastellar. Glover called Shreveport an “epicenter” with the potential to link prospective students from all points between Jackson, MS., Little Rock, Ark., Baton Rouge and Dallas.

The Pressler School of Law was first announced in July of 2007. And this news conference had just as much if not more energy than that one, especially with the realization that with a location, a building and a dean, what once started merely as hopes and dreams was actually coming to fruition.

It was Dr. Aguillard who perhaps best summed up that realization as it related to the greater mission Louisiana College sees itself as having.

“We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has opened the door for the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law to be a preeminent school of law right here in Shreveport.”

Watch segments from the news conference here:

LC President, Dr. Joe Aguillard


J. Michael Johnson, Dean of the Judge Pressler School of Law


Judge Paul Pressler, III


Cedric Glover, Shreveport Mayor

This entry has been viewed 935 times.