Orlando wins FAMU law school.

Orlando law firms pledged internships, mentoring and jobs for Florida A&M University students, and those promises helped sell Board of Regents Chancellor Adam Herbert on that site for the state's new law school.

Add the firm support of FAMU President Frederick Humphries, more than $10 million in cash and in-kind contributions from Orlando backers, and the Board of Regents unanimously selected Orlando over Tampa and Lakeland for the return of the FAMU College of Law.

"This professional support network in Orlando, coupled with approximately 2,000 FAMU alumni and 200,000 African-American citizens in the metropolitan statistical area, provides convincing evidence that FAMU law school students will find in Orlando the nurturing and encouragement that will enhance their potential for success in the legal profession," Herbert said on November 17, the day the BOR's vote signaled that FAMU could move forward with the project.

The legislative deadline calls for commencing classes by the fall semester 2003, but officials hope to open the school earlier.

Last year, in an 11th-hour flurry of the session, the legislature gave Florida State University a medical school and FAMU and Florida International University a pair of law schools to address low representation of minorities in the legal profession. The best available numbers show just two percent of Florida Bar members are African American and six percent are Hispanic.

While FIU will create a law school on its Miami campus, the legislature said the location of FAMU's school was to be located somewhere along the I-4 corridor. A site selection committee made up of staff from FAMU and the BOR visited the cities that submitted proposals (Daytona Beach eventually withdrew its bid from the application process). The committee ranked the proposals based on physical site and financial offerings, and the criteria included an offer of land, a temporary building site and the greatest ability to raise the necessary $12.5 to $15 million needed for the permanent law school facility.

In the end of a 16-week battle with rival Tampa, Orlando won out by offering a 3.77-acre downtown site, as well as promised contributions totaling more than $10.4 million, including $1 million from Denny's restaurant chain and $600,000 from the Orlando Magic.

In a Nov. 9 letter to Herbert, Humphries wrote: "Having reviewed the work of the FAMU College of Law Site Selection Committee and visited the proposed sites myself, I firmly believe...