Teacher, future CSOL student profiled in Greenville media
Excerpted from The Greenville (S.C.) News

MAY 31, 2004 - - The best lessons Margie Pizarro has ever taught have come from her own life experiences.

The fifth-grade teacher at Sirrine Elementary School said, "I tell my students every day, the experiences that some of you are having in terms of living in poverty situations, living in a single-parent home, I lived the same thing. You can't tell me a story that's going to be that shocking to me. And because of the fact that I have experienced it, grew past it, and have gained some semblance of success, you can do the same thing. Everything is possible."

At 35, Pizarro still believes that. So much so, that in November 2001, while watching a program on Court TV, she tapped into a new realm of possibilities. She heard about a man on South Carolina's death row who some still believe was wrongly convicted of a crime.
"When I saw this case, I thought, 'Gosh, I'm going to help that attorney get that man off death row, save his life.' "

Immediately, her longtime passion for the law was reignited. And she set out on a fact-finding mission to carve out a path to a legal degree. While attending [Greenville] Tech, she heard about Charleston School of Law, a new school that opens this August.

In December, she applied there. She was accepted last month and will be among the school's first students when it opens this fall.

"It's the right fit for me and my family," Pizarro said. "It's the opportunity that I was waiting for, and I'm so glad that I waited patiently, instead of jumping out there not really thinking things through."