If you spent the tail end of last week watching the NCAA Tournament, you may have encountered High Point University, the 12-seed that knocked off Wisconsin 83-82 in one of the Big Ten’s few blemishes so far. And if you watched the ensuing media coverage, you may have learned that High Point is, as Defector put it, “a deeply weird school.”
And now it’s a deeply weird school with provisional approval from the ABA for its law school.
High Point’s Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law earned the designation from ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar at the most recent meeting. Provisional approval means the school’s graduates — High Point began enrolling law students in 2024 — can sit for the bar exam and are entitled to the same recognition as graduates of fully approved schools. The school will need to demonstrate full compliance within five years to earn permanent accreditation.
It’s just another piece of the professional puzzle for the private North Carolina school, which brands itself as “The Premier Life Skills University.” And by “life skills,” the school means training graduates to be the most obnoxious spam poster on LinkedIn:
Because job interviews and client deals often happen over meals, administrators want students to rehearse social etiquette. So they built a steakhouse, Mediterranean restaurant and Teppanyaki grill, where students can eat weekly as part of their meal plan. Reservations are required; phones banished.
Also on campus is an airplane-cabin interior, because sitting next to an executive on a plane could offer a golden opportunity—one young people should rehearse for. The campus concierge offers students airport shuttle service for free if they wear a High Point University shirt; otherwise it costs $95—a lesson in brand awareness.
Everything about that is insufferable. But at least a school has come along to protect a future JD Vance from the supposed trauma he suffered when he couldn’t figure out a salad fork.
As the WSJ article notes, “some online critics deem High Point a ‘glorified country club,’ a characterization students and administrators dispute.” Presumably the school takes offense that “glorified” seems to mock the genuine country club they’ve built. The school charges wealthy students almost $40,000 for private housing and has six heated pools on campus. High Point charges high tuition to teach rich kids — “Half of Wall Street sends their kids to this school,” brags the university president — to Patrick Bateman their way to the top by rehearsing power lunches and becoming some air travel weary executive’s nightmare single-serving friend.
As for the law school, its 140 or so students — having only started accepting students for the Fall of 2024, there are only 1Ls and 2Ls so far — enjoy a shiny new 77,000-square-foot building featuring a 120-seat courtroom, two smaller courtrooms, and a 13,000-square-foot law library. Presumably they also have one of those F1 simulators, except for chasing down ambulances.
The founding dean is Mark Martin, former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, who has previously served as a law school dean. Which sounds great until you realize that his prior law school deanship was at Regent, a school founded by a guy who thought hurricanes target gay rights and that earthquakes are the natural result of overthrowing slavery, and that Martin himself is allegedly — along with John Eastman — the other half of the “Mike Pence could unilaterally declare that Trump won the 2020 election if he wanted to” theory booster club. According to the New York Times, Trump personally told Pence that Martin had advised him the VP had the power to decide who wins a presidential election.
In Martin’s defense, Trump has also claimed that a former president told him that he wished he’d gone to war with Iran — a conversation all living presidents have denied having — so it’s possible the convicted felon did not properly convey Martin’s advice. That said, the January 6 Committee’s final report indicates Martin spoke with Trump about it over a seven-minute phone call.
Maybe he should’ve spoken with him on an airplane.
How a Small North Carolina College Became a Magnet for Wealthy Students [WSJ]High Point Is A Deeply Weird School [Defector]
Earlier: Donald Trump Pegs Law School Dean As Source Of Dingbat ‘Pence Can Overturn Election’ Theory
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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