by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
As Florida Coastal School of Law (FCSL) prepares for its 13th class this fall, Dean Peter Goplerud told the Rotary Club of Jacksonville Monday the institution is poised for the future. While enrollment is not planned to grow as fast as in recent years, the educational standards will continue to give its students the opportunity to excel in a legal career or any other field they wish to pursue, he added.
“The school was created in 1996 with an entrepreneurial vision to provide a student-centered legal education,” said Goplerud. “The school received provisional accreditation in 1999 and soon after the first graduates took the Bar exam. They began a pattern of success that continues today.”
When he became dean four years ago, one of Goplerud’s first priorities was to find a new home for FCSL since the school had outgrown its original campus on Beach Boulevard. He said FCSL purchasing the former AT&T Transtech Building in Baymeadows “allowed us to create a state-of-the-art law school” and then offered graduation and employment statistics to support his statement.
“For the last five years. FCSL has been at or above the statewide (Bar exam) pass rate,” he said. “Last year, 85 percent of our graduates passed the exam which was 10 percent above the statewide average. The class of 2007 has achieved a 96.6 percent employment rate which was second-best in the state and our minority Bar pass rate exceeds the national average by at least 10 percent.”
Goplerud said in addition to basic legal education, FCSL will continue to improve its sports law, environmental law and international law programs. Last year’s task force on legal professionalism has also led to some new programs.
What Goplerud described as “the beginning of an environmental law center” will be part of FCSL’s future based on the success of the annual Environmental Summit the school hosts each year in partnership with Jacksonville University. Environmental law internships all over the country are also now available to FCSL students, he added.
He credited the school’s specialization and its basic philosophy for the level of success FCSL has achieved.
“We are different from other law schools. We are much more process- and outcome-oriented without losing the human touch or the focus on our students. We give them everything they need to prepare them for a career in law,” said Goplerud.
This fall’s enrollment will be 1,350 students and FCSL will graduate 400 or more in May. Goplerud said the class size means FCSL can no longer hold the ceremony at the University of North Florida.
“With the number of graduates and their family members, we are moving to the Veterans Memorial Arena, the largest facility in the community,” he said.
When asked if he thinks it might be possible to have too many attorneys in America, Goplerud replied, “We can never have enough good attorneys.”
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