Nicholas W Allard

Nick Allard (1974), Bodley Fellow and President of the Merton College Charitable Corporation (MC3), is the Randall C. Berg Jr. Founding Dean, Professor of Law, and Professor of Public Policy at the Jacksonville University, College of Law, Florida, USA.

Nick, came to Merton in 1974 as a Rhodes Scholar after graduating from Princeton with a Bachelor’s degree at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. He took his MA in PPE in 1976, going on to study to earn his JD at Yale Law School and pursuing a career in law, public policy, and government relations. He is a former Dean and President of Brooklyn Law School, where he launched several initiatives designed to make legal education more affordable, accessible, and valuable.

Background

Nicholas W. “Nick” Allard joined Jacksonville University as the Randall C. Berg Jr. Founding Dean of the College of Law in 2022. Previously he served as Dean of Brooklyn Law School (2012 - 2018), and concurrently as President (2013-2018) and Professor of Law (2012-2020). 

For many years Nick held leadership positions as a partner in highly regarded global law firms. Throughout his career he has been recognized as a leading lawyer for his work in public policy and legal work with clients in the fields of privacy, telecommunications, advanced broadband networked communications, technology, health, energy, environmental law, compliance, and higher education.  Nick has been a member of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Government Affairs, its taskforce on lobbying reform, chaired its Communications Committee, and chairs its Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress. 

Dean Allard also has held and holds prominent volunteer leadership positions at Princeton University, Oxford University, the Rhodes Scholarship Trust, Oxford’s Merton College, Cambridge University, Catholic University of America, and he is a long-time Trustee of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.

His legal education continued during clerkships with the late U.S. Chief District Judge Robert F. Peckham (N.D. CA) and the late U.S. Appellate Judge Patricia M. Wald (DC Cir.). His government and political experience include serving as senior staff for United States Senators Abraham Ribicoff (D CT), Chief of Staff for Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D NY), Minority Counsel for Senator Ted Kennedy (D MA) on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and Vice President Al Gore. 

Recently Allard was recognized as a Barrier Breaker by the Jacksonville Women’s Lawyer Association, a Top Newsmaker by the Jacksonville Daily Record, received the George Parkin Service Award from the Rhodes Scholarship Trust, and was appointed as a senior advisor to Cambridge University’s Lucy Cavendish College in England. Over his long profession and academic career, he has been a prolific author of commentary, articles, lectures and other presentations on law, public policy, politics, higher education, and other issues including especially the history of technology’s impact on society.