Nova Southeastern University - Shepard Broad College of Law

At the Shepard Broad Law Center, the focus is “more how to be a lawyer right out of school and less about the theoretical practice of law.” Students praise the school’s “practical application of the law”: “Every clerkship I have gone to I was ready for whatever was asked because the school prepares you to be able to do real world stuff.” NSU Law emphasizes the importance of clinical education; every student who meets the clinic criteria has the opportunity to participate in one of the school’s seven clinical programs, which include the Bankruptcy Clinic, the Environmental and Land Use Law Clinic, and the International Practice Clinic. NSU Law’s in-house clinics give qualified students the opportunity to gather practical skills in three specialized areas: alternative dispute resolution; children and family; and veterans law. Students begin their clinical semester with intensive classes that focus on advanced substantive law; for the rest of the term, faculty members supervise students while representing clients in NSU Law clinics, government agencies, nonprofits, and private law offices. Students interested in international law can take advantage of NSU Law’s host of study abroad programs, particularly the dual-degree law programs in Barcelona, Rome, or Prague that allow students to study American common law in addition to preparing to take the foreign nation’s bar exam (for those students that participate in the Spain and Italy program) or, for students in the Czech program, earn a LLM degree in either international human rights and environmental law or Central European and Czech law and business. Stateside, students generally praise the alumni network but say that the school could improve by paying more attention to its “[rank] and national reputation.”
Many students say their professors at NSU Law “are available and have an open-door policy. Their office hours feel like an extension of the classroom [but] much more personal,” with one student saying wistfully, “I wish I could clone the vigor and enthusiasm of my civil procedures teacher in all my future courses.” But not all NSU Law students speak so highly of the faculty, lamenting that “most of the professors are knowledgeable . . . however, most of them have no teaching skills of whatsoever. They are just proud of who they are and their own achievements.” Others wish for a less “sink or swim” attitude when it came to future success. The administration doesn’t earn high marks either, with students classifying it as “disorganized” and adding that “registering for classes is a nightmare.” One student goes so far as to say “the school administration is non-existent. In fact, I’ve been here 3 years and I have no idea who the administration is.”
The “facilities of the law school need serious work. We pay a lot in tuition that does not appear to be going to the law school.” One student notes that “more law students go to the public library than our own,” due to poor conditions, although another student counters that the NSU Law library “has all the resources we need but no one (at any law school) truly utilizes libraries anymore. They’re outdated and serve less and less any practical purpose.” Most research, say students, “is done online on our personal computer[s], not through the library,” though “if students want to use the library to go study, that is another matter. There’s plenty of study area in our library.”

As a fairly large law school that’s associated with an even larger parent institution—Nova Southeastern University has roughly 27,000 students and the law school has around 925—NSU Law has the potential to offer its students multiple social opportunities, as well as academic ones: “[NSU Law] has strong community ties since it is the only law school in the county.” Opportunities to unwind certainly abound in Fort Lauderdale and nearby Miami, which is thirty miles away.
In terms of competition among students, one student was surprised that “there was certainly a cutthroat mentality when I was a 1L” and “plenty of phony outlines” circulated that were “purposely changed with false information. If that’s not cutthroat, I don’t know what is.”