The debate over whether to lower the confederate flag that now flies over South Carolina’s statehouse has some lawyers from outside that state weighing in on the implications of venerating Old Dixie’s “stars and bars.” The flag flap heated up last year with demonstrations outside the statehouse and a lot of argument inside. The NAACP stoked the flames when it called for a boycott of tourism in South Carolina starting January 1. Recently, the New York Knicks announced that they will no longer train at South Carolina’s College of Charleston. Charleston’s annual Spoleto Festival U.S.A., considered the premier artistic festival in the Southeast, has begun to lose performers; last week, famed dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones withdrew his dance company.
That lawyers, always politically astute and often politically correct, have voiced opinions on the subject is not surprising. In early February, Kilpatrick Stockton, one of Atlanta’s largest firms, decided to move its annual retreat to the Florida gulf coast. This week, Philadelphia-based Dechert Price & Rhoads decided to move its retreat from South Carolina’s Wild Dunes Resort. Not only was Dechert moving to the decidedly less glamorous New Jersey seashore, but the firm took pains to point out that its action cost roughly $100,000 in non-refundable reservations.
