NSU Horizons Fall 2017

23 NSU HORIZONS Mitchell W. Berger, J.D., remembers when he was beginning his law practice. He felt the entrepreneurial spirit already brewing not only within him, but in those around him. It was the 1980s and Berger said he could see where the industry was headed. “We were moving from a post- industrial age to the information age,” he said. Berger opened his first law firm in Chattanooga, Tennessee, his parents’ home state. “If I wanted to be a lawyer, I didn’t want to be a widget in one of those big law firms. I wanted to start my own law firm,” he said. Then, in 1985, after moving to Florida, he founded what is now Berger Singer- man, which currently employs 80 attorneys in offices in Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Tallahassee. Berger’s success allowed him to act on the information- age vision he had identified when he first began practicing law: a clinic to train lawyers to deal with issues of intellec- tual capital. Berger, along with his wife, Sharon, who is also an attorney, partnered with Nova Southeastern University to make the dream a reality. The result is the Sharon and Mitchell W. Berger Entrepreneur Law Clinic being estab- lished at NSU’s Shepard Broad College of Law. “Sharon and I came up with different ideas, but this was the one that stuck,” said Berger, who serves on the NSU Board of Trustees. “It stuck, in part, because of NSU’s interest and devotion in developing and support- ing industries of the 21st century,” he said. Much of the clinic’s training will enable NSU researchers associated with the new Center for Collaborative Research (CCR), as well as innovators in technology, life sciences, and creative communities, to have, at their ready, lawyers trained in the nuances of their specific areas. “The legal profession will need to train its professionals to be counselors to the business community and understand how to help those professionals in the legal and commercial aspects of [the community’s] ideas,” said Berger. “Those who are valuable in the profession will know the ins and outs of a biotechnology patent, for instance.” The new entrepreneurial law clinic will operate out of the legal clinic complex within the College of Law building. It will join the college’s four other in-house clinics, according to Jon M. Garon, J.D., NSU Shepard Broad College of Law dean and professor. Currently, the law college offers legal assistance through its clinics for adults with intellec- tual development disabilities, children and families, veterans, and those in need of dispute resolution. BY MICHELLE F. SOLOMON Training Lawyers for the 21st Century Mitchell W. Berger believes the Entrepreneur Law Clinic will train lawyers to understand the needs of researchers, scientists, and those in the creative fields. continued on next page