Anyone know anthing about Nashville School of Law?

November 10, 2009 6:21 PM

Anyone know anything about Nashville School of Law?

I'm working as a legal assistant and plan to go to law school next year. I'm very strongly considering Nashville School of Law as it is affordable and will allow me to keep my day job. If anyone has gone to this, or any night non-traditional, law school, I would be very interested in hearing about your experience. Were you adequately prepared to practice? How was it finding a job? What areas of law were central to the curriculum (specifically public interest)? With a student body consisting of adults with jobs and families, what were the social and study-group aspects like? And anything else you wish to add...

Thanks in advance.

posted by roxie5 to education (8 comments total)

The school is not accredited by the American Bar Association; therefore, you will have problems practicing outside TN.
posted by dfriedman at 7:42 PM on November 10

See also more general information about ABA accreditation.
posted by dfriedman at 7:50 PM on November 10

As someone with friends in law, I'd very strongly take into account the school's lack of national accreditation. You may not be able to find the job you want in today's legal market, due to the economy, and the curriculum seems not to focus on public interest in particular, to judge from here.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 7:53 PM on November 10

For the part of your question about any other non-traditional night school, the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law has a part-time four year night program. Day students can take night classes after first year, and so I did take a few of my classes at night when I was there. It's been ten years, but at the time the students I knew came out as well prepared as the day students for finding jobs, if not a bit more so by virtue of their previous work experience. UofL has a public service requirement for graduation, and was one of the first schools to do so, and does offer a public interest clinic and externships as well as the usual law curriculum. Personally, I found the tone of the night classes more comfortable than the day classes, but that was due to the level of life experience of the students. Overall UofL was a pretty friendly and cooperative student body, I think, although of course I've no other personal experience of law school to compare it to.

On preview: note that UofL is fully accredited and quite respectable.
posted by dilettante at 7:57 PM on November 10

I'll echo what dilettante says. Many schools have part-time programs that mirror the over-all curriculum. The main place they vary is in the traditional first year course-work. Historically, the first year is a bit more rigorous--tackling very broad courses with a very full load. Obviously, this has to be tweaked for part-time or evening students.

In many programs, after the first year all students can take whichever courses they desire - so long as their schedule permits. Sometimes, the popular professors don't teach evening courses so the curriculum may be uneven. The school, however, has a vested interest in seeing that ALL their graduates go on to lead successful careers.

As mentioned above, ABA accreditation is important. Not being accredited shouldn't necessarily disqualify a school from consideration, but you should at the very least figure out why they aren't accredited. Having visited a couple of unaccredited schools, I would recommend that you not take the school's word on the matter, either.
posted by GPF at 10:27 PM on November 10

I guess I should have stated that I know the school is not ABA accredited. That is okay with me. There are a lot of lawyers and judges in my state that have gone to NSOL. I am only interested in hearing about people's experience at NSOL or a night law school.
posted by roxie5 at 6:31 AM on November 11

That is okay with me.

You should probably reconsider that. At the very least, see how NSOL grads have done in the last year or so with placement. Folks who came out of NSOL and got jobs 10 years ago are not good comparisons because the legal economy was far different and after a few years of practice, nobody really cares where you went to law school, by and large. So the fact that they're working now doesn't mean you won't have a very hard time finding a job.
posted by toomuchpete at 7:36 AM on November 11

Seconding toomuchpete; I would take another look at the accredited/nonaccredited decision, for the reasons expressed above, plus the fact that you may not always want to practice in TN.
posted by craven_morhead at 8:38 AM on November 12