Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad College of Law opened its doors on Wednesday, September 4, 1974, as the Nova University Center for the Study of Law. Now, as its 50th anniversary draws near, the law school, located on the University’s main campus in Davie, Florida, invites alumni and students, their friends and families, and the law school’s many supporters to celebrate at our upcoming 50th Anniversary gala on Saturday, April 13, 2024.
A Brief History of the Law School*
Having NU host a law school was an audacious idea. NU had been founded as part of a larger plan, hatched in 1960, to bring a complete educational campus to South Florida—one that would run “from the elementary school level through university.” In keeping with the times, NU was expected to be a science-based university. In October 1964, Warren J. Winstead, NU’s first president, explained: “We want to build a university here that will equal in stature, scope and authority Cal Tech and M.I.T.”
Given NU’s scientific mission, a law school was not a natural or easy fit. In September 1971, however, the Miami Herald ran a long article reporting that NU was about to receive accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Buried deep within the article was a sentence informing readers that “Dr. Alex Schure, [NU’s] chancellor, [has] approved Nova’s development of a law school.”
On May 18, 1973, after much planning by NU’s board of trustees, Peter W. Thornton, a professor at the University of Notre Dame’s law, was hired to be NU’s founding law school dean. After arriving in South Florida in July 1973, Thornton swiftly assembled the law school’s first faculty. This pioneering group included Professor (now Professor Emeritus) Bruce S. Rogow and Professor Joel S. Berman (currently the University’s Vice President for Legal Affairs).
On September 4, 1974, Thornton welcomed the law school’s inaugural class—consisting of 175 students—to the campus for a day-long celebration. Among the attendees were Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice James C. Adkins, Jr., and former American Bar Association President Chesterfield Smith, who gave the keynote address. In his remarks, Smith, reflecting on the recent resignation of President Richard M. Nixon due to Watergate, praised the lawyers who had stood up for the constitution and encouraged those in the audience to follow in their footsteps.
The next day, NU’s law school rang in its first classes.
*Adapted from Robert M. Jarvis, “And a Law School is in the Making”: The Founding of Nova University’s Center for the Study of Law, 47 Nova L. Rev. 255 (2023).