Five years ago, Christopher Muzzo was a 20-year veteran private practice attorney with no plans of changing careers. Then, an opportunity at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) came along.
“My law partner, Bob Furnier, who is also my teaching partner, got involved with the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at NKU,” he said. “I got involved in the periphery, at first as a volunteer and then in a consulting role. I enjoyed it.
“It organically grew into a more permanent teaching role and a conscious shift for me to move away from practice toward teaching. I am still practicing, but I am trying to wind it down.”
Nowadays, Muzzo has a full plate as a professor in the online Master of Legal Studies (MLS) program and director of NKU’s Small Business and Nonprofit Law Clinic.
He teaches several fully online courses: Emerging Technologies in the Law I and II, Digital Privacy and Security, Digital Crimes and Torts, Law for Digital Entrepreneurs, Digital Commerce and the Law, and Legal Boundaries in the Digital Age.
“The reach of an online program is greater,” he said. “It’s more efficient. We can be more creative and more engaging with how we teach when we don’t have to stand up in front of a class for three hours a week. All our courses are asynchronous.
“We use videos, readings, quizzes and discussion posts. We have a one-hour voluntary conference every week in case people want human contact and discussions.
“It gives us and the students a lot of flexibility. If they want to talk about something, they can come to the conference or put their heads down and do the assignments.”
Warranted Decision
Muzzo is a Cincinnati local who followed in the footsteps of his father, Larry, who practiced law in the 1970s. However, Muzzo graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from Northwestern University in 1994.
“About halfway through college, I still hadn’t decided what I wanted to do,” he said. “Law school sounded interesting. Plus, my dad had practiced law.”
Three years later, Muzzo graduated with a Juris Doctor (JD) from Northwestern before launching his career as an attorney. At NKU, he especially likes imparting his experience and knowledge in his role with the Small Business and Nonprofit Law Clinic.
“I enjoy working with founders trying to get a business or a non-profit off the ground and being able to give them that legal guidance … to build their foundation,” he said.
The teaching aspect of his role is also appealing to Muzzo — especially because of the variety of voices in each class.
“I like interacting with the students,” he said. “I like hearing their perspectives in the weekly voluntary conferences that I moderate. It’s not designed to be a lecture — it’s a discussion among everybody.
“A lot of the topics we teach in our courses are sort of the Law & Order of law school courses … We are talking about things that are going on right now, like Bitcoin or the debate over Section 230 [of the Communications Decency Act].
“Hearing the varying perspectives of the students on these hot-button issues is my favorite part of teaching.”
Natural Appeal
During his experience at NKU, Muzzo also enjoys hearing about the different career fields that his students work in.
“The MLS is a different animal than the JD program,” he said. “We get people with a more diverse background of what they do for a living.
“Most everybody in the MLS program is working and taking classes, so we get a lot of different perspectives from different work backgrounds.
“It’s like other schooling where everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses, but it’s been fun to see the variety of folks who come through our MLS program.”
Muzzo also enjoys hearing about and seeing what his students do with their master’s degrees upon graduation.
“If you’re in the JD program, you plan to be a lawyer,” he said. “If you’re in the MLS program, there’s any number of things. A lot of people want to go on to law school, but others use it for their other professions.
“We had a student older than me who is a 20-year veteran of the Cincinnati Police come through our program. We’ve had a lot of insurance and risk-management folks looking at learning more about the legal aspect of what they do. A lot of them have a tech background. We’ve had some social workers in the program, too.”
Muzzo and his wife, Diana, have two kids, Jack (17) and Lucy (14). Both are involved in competitive sports.
“Kids’ sports has dominated my time for the last 10 years,” he said. “I coach my son’s baseball team. My daughter plays softball. My son is also on the rowing team.”
Now that he has found a new calling, Muzzo looks forward to building on his second career and passing along his wisdom to a new group of students each year.
“Teaching was not on the radar — it is my second act,” he said. “Plus, Cincinnati is my home. Being involved with a university 15 minutes from where I live is nice.”
Learn more about NKU’s online Master of Legal Studies program.
