Charleston School of Law: Where did you grow up?

Professor Kevin Eberle: Charleston is my hometown.

Charleston School of Law: What are your passions outside the law?

Professor Kevin Eberle: I am tremendously interested in history, conservation, real estate, that kind of stuff.

Charleston School of Law: Is there a particular historical subject matter that fascinates you more than anything?

Professor Kevin Eberle: I live in the uptown up by Hampton Park, which is Charleston’s preeminent downtown large park. I wrote a book about it and that area really interests me. Which has a long history from pre-colonial type to today. I was actually very surprised when I was doing research on the lack of primary source material about that period. I have turned over every stone to look for it, and it’s just not out there.

Charleston School of Law: What skills and talents do you have outside of teaching?

Professor Kevin Eberle: I can do a surprising number of things associated with restoring an old house.

Charleston School of Law: Is this knowledge you acquired while working on the cottage home you purchased recently?

Professor Kevin Eberle: When I moved to Charleston after law school in 1996 I bought an old house that I now live in. Everything about that house needed work. I’ve done floor refinishing, plumbing, electrical, all that kind of stuff.

Charleston School of Law: How did you learn how to do that?

Professor Kevin Eberle: It seems hard to believe, but I learned a lot from the actual old source material. A lot of it was done by reading and specialty magazines and publications. Now, if I needed to teach myself how to plaster a wall, I would just go to YouTube. Yeah. But that wasn’t an option at the time.

Charleston School of Law: Are you a music fan?

Professor Kevin Eberle: When I was young, my parents got a piano, which I have in my house. I took lessons, thought that I would enjoy it more, but like, I think most 12 and 13 year old you’re not that motivated to practice the piano. It’s a great regret of mine that I didn’t stick with it.

Charleston School of Law: What’s the most rewarding part of teaching for you?

Professor Kevin Eberle: I enjoy the friendships that I have with my former students. In fact, every year I invite my students out to Juanita Greenberg’s for drinks and appetizers. There are about 200 of them now. I invite them all back to come back and meet the new students.

Charleston School of Law: Who influenced your teaching style?

Professor Kevin Eberle: I had a criminal procedure professor who had an interesting way of doing testing, which I copied. He broke the semester into thirds, and at the end of the first third we would form teams of four. Then he gave us a prompt, like a fact pattern and said, I want you all your team, to write an opinion based on the cases that we had read in class. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but in hindsight I learned so much from doing that. I remember our team debating for hours about why we were right. I learned so much about from those discussions.