flexit

One of Aron Pirov’s favorite professors at Touro Law Center is Myra Berman. Decades separate the student from the professor in age, but coincidence and life circumstances are irrevocable binders.

Pirov graduated in 2022, as a member of the inaugural class of Touro Law Center’s FlexTime program, perhaps the only such initiative in the country where students attend classes on Sundays only—including mandatory summer semesters— and receive their law degree in four years. Some students even fly in from other cities for their classes, finding that commute easier than having to attend school four nights a week.

Pirov could not be prouder or more grateful for the FlexTime program. He is a husband, a parent and a full-time social worker for the City of New York.

And now, at age 43, he is a lawyer. “I’ve wanted to, and tried to, go to law school for a very long time,” says Pirov, who came to the U.S. from Uzbekistan as a teen. “Even part-time evening law schools were impossible. Work all day, long commute and then sit through classes into the night and then travel home, do homework, sleep and do it again and again. Impossible. This is one reason I love Professor Berman, besides that she is a very good teacher and human being. She understands what I’ve gone through.”

Perfectly.

Berman did manage the impossible, attending Touro Law in the evenings while working full time, graduating in 2005. Today she is a professor as well as Touro Law’s associate dean for experiential learning and special programs, which includes FlexTime. “I attended law school when I was 52,” says Berman, who was a single mother who waited until her two children were grown to realize her dream. “I worked full time as a social worker just like Aron. It was hard and exhausting with the commute and a demanding job, but I did it. What I would have given if this program existed then. I’m just happy that Aron and others get this opportunity to study the law. I’m proud to say that these FlexTime students are not your average students, and they are excelling in class and fulfilling their dreams.”

They’re generally older, have established careers and their life experiences enable them to appreciate the privilege of being able to attend law school. There were 17 students in the first graduating class of May 2022—the majority were eager to begin their second career as attorneys.

“They are more mature, and the learning curve is so different from the average law student,” says Berman, who teaches constitutional law, family law and criminal law. “Our FlexTime program student body includes nurses, social workers, high-ranking members of the New York Police Department, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and so many others—such a diversity of experiences and knowledge, which in turn make such an impact on every other student and on myself as their educator. They are passionate to learn about the language, the knowledge and practice of law.”

The law is a language in which Pirov is now fluent. He hopes to work as a lawyer for the city agency where he’s been employed as a social worker and supervisor since 2005. “Everyone warned me about how difficult it would be to pass the bar exam,” he says. “I passed it on my first try. I am not trying to brag. I am proud. I thank the kind and wonderful Professor Berman and everyone at Touro Law. They make possible what was for so many people, impossible.”