The Buchanan County Board of Supervisors and the Buchanan County Industrial Development Authority plan to grant up to $6 million to the Appalachian School of Law to get it through a short-term financial crisis.
The private law school’s long-term future in Grundy remains uncertain.
Following comments from more than 20 people at a public hearing Monday, the board voted 6-1 to form a committee with representatives from the board of supervisors, IDA and law school to draw up a contract for the additional funding. The agreement is expected to be signed at a joint meeting on Feb. 10.
Craig Stiltner was the only supervisor to vote against the motion. He is one of two board members leading a committee to consider whether to allow the law school to relocate out of the county.
The county will not pursue purchase of the Booth Center, which houses most of the law school’s administrative offices. The board had previously considered purchasing the building.
ASL President and Dean David Western declined to comment after the meeting Monday.
Western revealed to the board of supervisors in December that the law school was considering a merger with Roanoke College.
He told supervisors that although the school had reduced its budget deficit since he took over leadership in 2023, ASL needed about $2.5 million to remain open through spring 2026. For it to survive longer-term, it would need funds closer to $10 million.
Declining enrollment has impacted the law school’s ability to bring in revenue. It has about 180 students; in 2012, it had about 265.
The school needs 300 students to be sustainable, Western told the board in December.
ASL was founded in 1994 in part to boost Buchanan County’s economy. A 1996 agreement between the law school and Buchanan County granted ASL its academic and library buildings, but also stipulates that the school not be moved without approval of the board of supervisors and the IDA.
Roanoke College has not commented publicly on the state of its talks with ASL since December, when it acknowledged that the two schools hadn’t reached a formal agreement.
In May, the board of supervisors added $100,000 to the 2025-2026 budget for ASL in response to a request from Western of $200,000 for needed building repairs, plus $100,000 annually.
Nearly all of the two dozen speakers at the hearing Monday supported keeping the law school afloat and keeping it in Buchanan County.
Sarah Perry, a first-year student at ASL, was moved to tears during her comments to the board via Zoom.
She said continuing to invest in ASL and work to keep it in Grundy would be a leap of faith. “But I would ask that it be considered for students like me … students who know what it’s like to be doubted and judged because of the twang in our voice, our dialect and our way of life, students who want to pour back into the communities that have served them all throughout their lives and are in desperate need of legal aid,” she said.
Ben Mayhew, a junior at Twin Valley High School, told the board he aspires to be a lawyer and that he would like to have the option to attend ASL.
“[If] you move the law school out of Buchanan County, you have less people coming into the county that might stay in this region and practice law,” he said. And young people like him who want to pursue law as a career, he said, would be more likely to leave.