NSU Law Center Signs Dual Degree Program with University of Venice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 4, 2005

NSU Law Center Signs Dual Degree Program with University of Venice

FT. LAUDERDALE-DAVIE, FL-The Shepard Broad Law Center at Nova Southeastern University has signed an agreement with the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice for a dual degree program that will allow NSU students to study in Venice for a semester while Italian students will come to NSU. The Law Center also has a similar dual degree program with the University of Barcelona.

While most of the world operates under a civil law legal system, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and a few other countries follow the common law principles that were originally developed in England and adopted in the United States during the colonial period.

As with the agreement signed in 2001 with the University of Barcelona, dual degree students in the Venice program will study common and civil law systems. In order to qualify for either dual degree program, students must have an excellent academic record and be fluent in English and Spanish or Italian. The dual degree programs are limited to a select number of students.

The dual degree program works as follows:

NSU Law students spend one semester of their second year at either the University of Barcelona or Ca’ Foscari University of Venice studying a prescribed list of civil law courses.

Students from Barcelona or Venice spend a semester at NSU Law studying a prescribed list of courses such as Lawyering Skills and Values I, Criminal Law, and Torts and Contracts.

Courses at either university count toward their home school degree. When the students finish their visiting semester, they return to their home university to finish their national law degree.

NSU Law students who have done well in the program and complete their JD studies are eligible to sit for the Bar in the U.S. and then return to Spain or Italy for another year of studying whereupon they will be awarded the Spanish or Italian law degree. With their dual degrees, NSU law students will be admitted to practice in Spain or Italy and be allowed to practice transactionally in the European Union. Those with a Barcelona degree will also be admitted on motion in many of the jurisdictions in Latin America.

Spanish and Italian students who have done well in the program will return to NSU Law, and after completing three semesters of NSU Law’s academic program will be awarded the United States J.D. degree and qualify to sit for the Bar in any of the U.S. jurisdictions. When the students return for the year post-graduation from their home school, they will follow a course of study that will give them a broad background in the law of the other country to provide them a foundation on which they can build their practice in the other legal system.

Joseph D. Harbaugh, dean at the Shepard Broad Law Center, remarked, “There is an emerging need for lawyers to be multi-lingual and licensed in multiple jurisdictions. Major law firms in the United States and elsewhere have made a commitment to ‘follow their clients,’ and their motto is, ‘wherever their clients go so too will the firm.’ This program will prepare future lawyers from Spain, Italy, and the United States in the laws of the two major legal systems in the world. These lawyers will be prepared to ‘follow their clients.’