Aside from bricks and mortar, the true foundation of a law school rests squarely on the reputation of its faculty. Miles Law School is privileged to have preeminently qualified instructors; some of whom are successful alumni. The vast majority are practicing attorneys in the private and public sectors. Blending the academic and professional worlds with their theoretical knowledge and practical experience adds another dimension to classroom instruction. The common denominator is their genuine commitment to the training of legal minds.
Law school is unique in many respects from other fields of study. It requires a period of acclimation to a new way of thinking and processing information. Weekly class preparation entails a copious amount of reading assigments and case briefing along with research and writing. This experience is virtually universal for nearly all law students-everywhere.
Yet, the Miles Law School Experience incorporates all of the traditional aspects of legal studies and adds special character and flavor of its own that separates it from all others. Firstly, by catering to “non-traditional” and socially conscious students, the law school creates an environment of ”determined achievers“. Secondly, our history as an evening school remains the bedrock of our existence, which guides our present and shapes our future. Thirdly, our faculty members’ courtroom-to-classroom teaching enriches student learning.
While law school commands a serious, focused mind, it is not one dimensional in its purpose. Miles Law School provides opportunities for leadership and community service through participation in student organizations. The Student Bar Association , the Black Law Students Association and Delta Theta Phi legal fraternity all solicit and encourage student involvement and activities promoting student camaraderie, altruistic service and civic improvement.
In the early 1970s, then Miles College President W. Clyde Williams, along with then Bishop of the Fifth Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Chester A. Kirkendoll, now deceased, who served as chairman of the Miles College Trustee Board, Judge J. Richmond Pearson, then an Alabama state senator, and the school’s current chairman of the trustee board, Dan Turberville, Harry Lyons, Morris Dees, Esquire, co-founder of the Southern Law Poverty Center, Arthur D. Shores, noted civil rights attorney, now deceased, and others mobilized and provided the impetus for the school’s founding. Troubled by the dearth of minority lawyers in an impoverished state with a sizeable black population, these bold-thinking visionaries recognized the need for a law school that would produce lawyers committed to pubic service and social justice.
It was out of this reality, concern and desire to change the legal landscape of Alabama that Miles Law School was founded, admitting its first class in August 1974. Before his appointment by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 as the state’s first black federal judge, then-State Senator U.W. Clemon served in an advisory role to the law school. Senator Clemon co-chaired with fellow State Senator J. Richmond Pearson an effort to raise funds for the fledgling school. Judge Clemon currently serves on the law school’s trustee board.
The law school’s motto of “Striving to Balance” directly relates to the imbalance, disparity and disproportionality of black lawyers and of the underserved minority populace that existed in this state. Since the first graduates in 1978, the law school’s sons and daughters have made tremendous strides in closing the gap.
Current board chairman Judge Pearson recounts the challenges faced by the law school during its nascent beginnings.
Miles Law School
Post Office Box 39150
Birmingham, AL 35208
(205) 923-7739