NLMA Leader Profile: Susan H. Stephan

When Susan Stephan first began teaching legal masters students in 2016, she already had substantial experience in legal education. She had been teaching JD students since 2001 and working in legal education administration since 2005.

But legal masters education was new territory.

She began developing graduate legal courses and teaching in an established program at NSU Broad College of Law. And she quickly discovered something she hadn’t expected.

“I loved it from the start,” she says.

What drew her in was the students. Unlike traditional law students, who are generally preparing to enter the legal profession, legal masters students are typically already established in their careers. They come to the classroom looking for a deeper understanding of the laws and regulations that affect the work they are already doing.

“They’re focused and motivated, with the goal of professional excellence,” she says.

That experience led her to take on an increasingly central role in graduate legal education. In 2017, she became Associate Dean for Graduate and Online Programs at NSU Law, overseeing the law school’s online and non-JD graduate programs, with a particular focus on its legal masters program.

Then, in 2021, an opportunity closer to home brought her to Ohio and the University of Cincinnati Klekamp College of Law. A new legal masters program was being developed, and she saw an opportunity not only to build a program but to expand access to graduate legal education in her home state.

She couldn’t resist.

Today, she serves as Director of the online Master of Legal Studies program at UC Law. The program launched in January 2022 and is now in its fifth year.

And once again, she says, the students are the best part.

The client perspective

One of the things that continues to distinguish legal masters students, in her view, is what they bring with them into the classroom.

Many are full-time working professionals juggling careers and other personal responsibilities. Yet they bring a remarkable level of commitment to their studies and to their interactions with classmates and faculty.

“I have now come to expect the unique level of commitment, responsibility, and respect that our masters students bring to their coursework,” she says.

That experience outside the classroom also changes what happens inside it.

Legal masters students often arrive with a practical understanding of specific legal issues because they have already encountered those issues in their professional lives. They may be working in healthcare, compliance, human resources, contracts, policy, or another field in which legal and regulatory questions are part of the job.

She describes what they bring to law school in a particularly useful way:

“The client perspective to legal education.”

It is a perspective that can enrich the classroom for everyone. These students aren’t necessarily trying to become lawyers. They are trying to become more effective professionals by understanding the legal environment in which they work.

That distinction is important because one misconception about legal masters degrees continues to bother her: the idea that they are simply a “JD-lite” for people who couldn’t—or didn’t want to—go to law school.

“That is patently untrue of the students I have experienced,” she says.

Her students are often highly focused professionals who have no interest in becoming lawyers. What they do recognize is that a stronger understanding of law and regulation can make them better at the work they have chosen to do.

A field growing with its students

She sees the growth of legal masters education as an important development for prospective students. The increasing number and variety of programs means students are increasingly likely to find a program designed around their particular professional goals.

That variety, however, also creates an important responsibility for law schools.

Programs need to understand the realities of the students they serve and design educational experiences that work within those realities.

That may mean flexibility in how courses are delivered, attention to the pressures facing working professionals, and programs that are genuinely responsive to students’ career needs.

The need for that responsiveness may become even more important as graduate education faces broader challenges, including changes in federal approaches to financial aid, university resource decisions, and increasing pressures on prospective students’ time.

For her, the opportunity and the challenge are closely connected: as legal masters education grows, programs have an opportunity—and an obligation—to get better at meeting students where they are.

Beyond the degree itself

She would like to see employers become much more engaged in that equation.

In her ideal world, employers would understand the value that legal masters graduates bring to their organizations, actively encourage employees to pursue the programs that fit their goals, and help pay for them.

Even without reaching that ideal, she believes employers should recognize the value of graduate legal education for employees whose jobs routinely intersect with law.

Human resources professionals. Contract managers. Compliance professionals. Policy staff.

“These employees would truly benefit from a graduate legal education,” she says, “and should be supported in their endeavors to become more effective in their roles.”

Her argument isn’t simply that a legal masters degree can advance someone’s career. She sees something more fundamental in the educational experience itself.

One of the greatest benefits of working with legal masters students, she says, is that she continues to learn from them.

She considers herself a lifelong learner, and her students continually reinforce a lesson she finds both simple and powerful: taking an educational opportunity seriously and making the most of it is itself a reward.

Career advancement and enhanced professional skills are important outcomes. But so is the experience of deliberately improving something about yourself.

“Taking the time to improve something about yourself is always worth it,” she says.

Finding the right fit

That philosophy informs the advice she gives prospective students.

Her first message is encouraging: if someone believes a legal masters program might be right for them, it probably is worth exploring.

But the growth of the field means students have more choices—and should take advantage of them.

She encourages prospective students to look carefully at the available programs and ask what will actually serve their goals. Is the most relevant focus business compliance? Healthcare regulation? Criminal law? Something else?

Then there are questions of format. Would an in-person or online program work better? For an online program, would synchronous classes or asynchronous coursework better fit the student’s life?

And, perhaps most importantly, can the student actually reach someone at the program who can answer their questions?

Choosing a legal masters program is a meaningful investment of time and resources, she says. 

But finding the right fit can make that investment both valuable and enjoyable.

It is a perspective shaped by a career that took an unexpected turn.

“When I was in law school many decades ago,” she says, “it never occurred to me that I would end up working in, and absolutely loving, graduate legal education.”

She has always believed in the importance of legal knowledge to society. What has changed is the way she sees the role of legal education itself.

Today, she is committed not only to educating lawyers, but to expanding access to legal knowledge beyond the traditional preparation of lawyers.

And after nearly a decade in the legal masters space, she remains enthusiastic about the people at the center of that expansion: professionals who come to law school not because they want to become lawyers, but because they want to become better at what they already do.