Professor of Law
Name: Constance Apostolou Anastopoulo
Summers as a Camper: Wasn't a camper
Years as a Staff Member/Positions held: 4 years
- 1981: Junior Counselor, Land Staff
- 1982: Senior Counselor, Archery Chief
- 1983: Senior Counselor, Asst. Head, Camp 2
- 1985: Head Counselor Camp 2
- Also on staff for Family Camp
Current Profession:
- Professor of Law, Charleston School of Law (2007-present)
- Visiting Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law, (2023-present)
Previous Roles:
- Investment Broker, Prudential Bache Securities
- Law Student, UNC School of Law
- Z. Smith Reynolds Grant Recipient, N.C. Prisoner Legal Services
- Parner/Lawyer, Anastopoulo Law Firm
Current Responsibilities and Career Path
I am a Professor of Law at both Charleston School of Law and UCLA School of Law. I teach Torts (a first-year class), Insurance Law and Professional Responsibility (Ethics). Before I joined the faculty at CSOL, I practiced law for 15 years doing civil litigation. Prior to that, when I graduated from law school, I worked with women in the N.C. Prison for Women on a grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. Without question, my time working with female prisoners, understanding the circumstances that brought them to prison, hearing their concerns about their families, their children and their lives, profoundly impacted the kind of law I wanted to practice, which was litigating for people who often did not have a voice or an advocate. My legal work was hard but rewarding.
However, when the law school invited me to teach, I jumped at the chance. What I learned being a camp counselor at Seafarer was that I loved to teach young people and watch them learn. Being a part of helping someone learn a new skill, figure out a difficult task, grasp a new concept, regardless of whether it is learning archery or sailing at Seafarer or learning Torts as a first-year law student, is incredibly gratifying. Seafarer really helped me learn that teaching is where my heart is. I absolutely love what I do and feel so fortunate to have found the kind of work that fills me up every day.
Key Lessons from Camp
As a professor, I utilize so many of the skills Camp taught me. I know that students (whether law students or a student of sailing) learn differently. It is important to offer different ways of delivering the materials. Understanding that, I utilize visual slides, I lecture and add stories which help students remember the concepts, I draw pictures on a whiteboard, and use other modalities to help students. The skills I learned as a camp counselor have made me a better teacher.
Since I also teach Ethics, I try to impart the values of Camp to the future lawyers I am teaching, and the one I repeat the most is, "Character Counts." Lawyers will almost surely face ethical dilemmas in their everyday practice of law; they will hopefully have long careers as lawyers, and how they deal with the issues that arise will impact their reputations, how judges perceive them, and how much clients trust them. These are all important factors to having a successful career as a lawyer, and it begins with having a good character.
Proud Achievements
I have had a long career as I have been an attorney for more than thirty years. I am most proud of the reputation I have both as a lawyer and as a professor. As a lawyer, I have a reputation as an advocate for my clients, as a successful lawyer, that I helped a lot of people, and that I changed S.C. law when I argued and won a case (Gaskins v. So. Farm Bureau) before the S.C. Supreme Court.
As a professor, I am most proud of my reputation among my colleagues and students as an excellent teacher and mentor. I have been chosen Professor of the Year or Runner-Up for Professor of the Year for many years. I am invited each year by the Chief Justice of the S.C. Supreme Court to teach the judges in our state Insurance Law and update them on new cases. I am invited by the S.C. Bar to author books on Insurance Law and lecture at Continuing Legal Education Seminars on Insurance Law and Ethics. So it all goes back to "Character Counts" and the values we teach and learn at Camp.
Influential Camp Mentor
My Camp story is a little different than most... I came to Seafarer in 1984 because my grandmother was on the Board of First Citizens Bank with Lil Taylor and they were friends. I was 18 years old. My mother was very ill with cancer, and my grandmother wanted me to stay close, so she sent me to Seafarer. I had never heard of it before I drove through the gate. Shortly after I came to Camp, my mother's condition worsened, and over the summer, she continued to decline. She died at the beginning of fall, just a few weeks after I started college.
Somehow, the directors and administrators at Camp found out about my mother. It was the most difficult summer of my life, but being at Camp saved me. The people there: Judy Bright, Julie Engler, Wendy Wilmot, and many others were so kind to me. Judy and Julie always checked in with me, and I felt so supported. Wendy Wilmot lent me her car to drive to Duke Hospital at Session Break to see my mother. It was one of the last times I saw my mom conscious. I will never forget that.
I did not have a history at Camp. I was not a "Camp person." I had not been a camper. I didn't know any staff when I arrived, but when I left at the end of the summer, I had a whole family of people who supported and helped me. All these years later, more than 40 years, I still count among my best friends the people I met at Camp. Camp didn't just shape my life; it saved it.
Advice for Staff
I think working at Camp is one of the best things a young person can do. I know students today are focused so much on getting a job or internship in the summer because they believe it will help them get a job when they graduate, but the people skills, the work ethic, the relationships you make as a Seafarer counselor are invaluable. My first summer after my first year of law school, I got a summer clerkship with a lawyer in Raleigh, Mac Boxley, because I met him at Camp (he was an attorney for the YMCA of the Triangle). My second summer of law school, I got a summer clerkship with a large law firm on the North Carolina coast because the two law partners' children had gone to Seafarer, and since I worked at Camp, the lawyers knew what kind of summer clerk they would be getting by hiring a former Seafarer counselor. I cannot count how many times things have happened in my life, and I have utilized the relationships I made at Seafarer.
But maybe most of all, it is a lot of FUN. You will have the rest of your life to work in an office or for a company, so while you are young, take advantage of the opportunity to work with young people, work outside, meet and work with incredible people, and have a blast being a camp counselor.
