<p>A Cleveland County grand jury has indicted the Atlanta law firm that advised Gardner-Webb University during a grade-changing scandal for the unauthorized practice of law.</p><p>The misdemeanor indictments were issued against the law firm of Decker, Hallman, Barber and Briggs as well as attorneys F. Edwin Hallman Jr. and H. King Buttermore III.</p><p>The firm and lawyers are accused of practicing law in North Carolina "without being admitted as an active member of the bar and without being licensed to practice as an attorney-at-law" in the state. No trial date has been set.</p><p>District Attorney Bill Young said it was unusual for a grand jury to issue indictments on a misdemeanor. He said the more than $100,000 the university paid the law firm could be recovered if the firm were convicted.</p><p>Buttermore and Hallman declined comment Friday. A phone message left at the law firm was not immediately returned. Officials with the Georgia State Bar did not return phone calls Thursday.</p><p>Gardner-Webb President Frank Campbell declined to comment on the indictments. In an interview with The Shelby Star last September, one year after the scandal broke, Campbell described the law firm's work at Gardner-Webb as "unnecessary. Not helpful."</p><p>The firm was hired by Gardner-Webb's trustees in September 2002, after then-president Dr. Chris White revealed he had intervened to change the grade of the school's star basketball player, making him eligible to play.</p><p>Decker, Hallman produced a report for the Baptist school in Boiling Springs, about 60 miles west of Charlotte, that found White admitted to the faculty that he demonstrated a lapse in judgment in directing the registrar to use a different formula that improved student Carlos Webb's grade point average. White did not violate school policy and did not direct any student's grade to be changed, the firm's report said.</p><p>White eventually resigned. The NCAA penalized the school last month.</p><p>Shelby attorney O. Max Gardner III filed an initial complaint against the law firm through the North Carolina Bar. Gardner said he complained after the university's attorneys sent letters to some of White's critics threatening to sue them for libel or slander.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x286645c)</p>
