Lunsford Academy Ranks as Top Innovation Program in the Nation

The W. Bruce Lunsford Academy for Law, Business + Technology at Chase College of Law is the top program in the nation for innovation and business, according to Bloomberg Law.

Bloomberg Law, a national provider of legal analysis and analytics, ranked the Lunsford Academy first in the Innovation and Business category of its just released rankings for law school programs that offer new approaches to instruction and use of legal technology.

• What Chase Dean Judith Daar says about the ranking: “Chase is incredibly privileged to steward the groundbreaking Lunsford Academy. For over a decade, the academy has been delivering innovative law, business and technology programming to our students who are emerging as leaders in the field. Our talented faculty and staff are devoted to our students’ success as the next generation of tech-savvy legal professionals.”

• What the Lunsford Academy is: The academy is a classroom and experiential-learning program that links practical legal, business and technology training that was created in 2013 with a $1 million gift from Chase alumnus W. Bruce Lunsford and further backed by him in 2022 with a $3 million gift to expand the program.

• What students do in the academy: Among the specialized courses are Essential Quantitative Skills for Lawyers, Law Practice Technology, and Law, Technology + Entrepreneurship. Among notable student projects is the creation of Clark the Clerk, a software program to provide searches for clerk of courts’ document forms nationwide, which was later duplicated to search for online Covid-19 economic assistance and resources. Lunsford Fellows have externships with such regional operations as Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Gravity Diagnostics and Paycor.

• What the academy has meant to some of its first graduates, in the Class of 2017: Andrea Sager is the founder and chief executive of Legalpreneur Inc., a Texas-based online provider of legal resources and services for business owners, and founder of Andrea Sager Law; Drew Chalfant is a founder and managing partner of Roda Chalfant, a Cincinnati boutique firm with clients that want to franchise their business models, and Katelyn Abrams is senior counsel with Great American Insurance Group, Cincinnati, involved in matters such as mergers and acquisitions, holding-company issues and reinsurance transactions.

• How to learn more about Chase and the Lunsford Academy: Explore Chase at ChaseLaw.nku.edu and the Lunsford Academy directly at LunsfordAcademy.org.