Qualla: Appalachian School of Law

Appalachian School of Law: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chrisfortier at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Ex petra veritatis justitia exsurgit. From the rock of truth, justice arises. The motto of the Appalachian School of Law was carved in Latin partly out of academic tradition and partly because the founders meant something specific by it: the rock in question was Buchanan County, Virginia - the actual sandstone of the Appalachian Plateau, the coal-bearing strata under the campus, the mountain country that built the town of Grundy and had been written off by most of the rest of the country. Justice, they thought, ought to arise from there too. In 1997, the school took in its first class of seventy-one students. The buildings that housed them had previously been a junior high school.

Image: Chrisfortier at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Appalachian School of Law: A Law School in a Coal Town

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chrisfortier, CC BY 3.0. Grundy is the seat of Buchanan County, the only county in Virginia that borders both West Virginia and Kentucky - tucked into a fold of the Appalachian Plateau where the Levisa Fork cuts through the sandstone. By the early 1990s, the coal economy was contracting, the town's popul...

Image: Chrisfortier | CC BY 3.0

Appalachian School of Law: The Founding Mission

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chrisfortier, CC BY 3.0. ASL was created to train lawyers for places like the place it was built in. The curriculum emphasizes alternative dispute resolution and community service - both topics chosen with central Appalachia in mind, where civil disputes often involve neighbors and where access to formal...

Image: Chrisfortier | CC BY 3.0

Appalachian School of Law: January 16, 2002

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chrisfortier (talk) (Uploads), Public domain. On January 16, 2002, a former student named Peter Odighizuwa, who had been dismissed for academic reasons, returned to campus with a handgun. He killed Dean Anthony Sutin, Professor Thomas Blackwell, and first-year student Angela Dales, a single mother working her way through law...

Image: Chrisfortier (talk) (Uploads) | Public domain

Appalachian School of Law: A Sister School in Pharmacy

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tburgess68, CC BY-SA 3.0. ASL's modest early success encouraged the same Buchanan County leaders to try the same trick again. The Appalachian College of Pharmacy - originally the University of Appalachia College of Pharmacy - was founded in nearby Oakwood in 2003, opening its doors in 2005. It occupies th...

Image: Tburgess68 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Appalachian School of Law: The Difficult Years

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tburgess68, CC BY-SA 3.0. Like many small private law schools, ASL has faced hard years. Bar passage rates have wavered. Employment outcomes for graduates, particularly in the years following the 2008 recession, were difficult - the school's 2021 disclosure showed 31% of the Class of 2020 in full-time, JD...

Image: Tburgess68 | CC BY-SA 3.0