You attended Duke and earned your BA and JD. What was your major as an undergraduate?

Zisk: English and Psychology. I was a double major.

How did someone studying English and psychology get into the legal field?

Zisk: I was in my sophomore year at Duke, and I went to a meeting about the judicial board comprised students, faculty, and staff. I thought, this is interesting. I realized that these people think like me. I realized I needed to go to law school. I had never thought about law school before that.

You’ve been with the Charleston School of Law since inception. What inspires you to teach law students?

Zisk: I loved law school. I love the idea of learning about how society is ordered and breaking it down into parts so that people understand it. That’s the way my mind works; not to memorize things, but to understand them. I find legal principles that order human conduct to be fascinating and I love sharing it.

I had a friend who was teaching a course at American University and she told me the dean was looking for adjunct professors. I sent him a resume. What I loved about practice was educating what the law required of them.

When I heard that there was going to be a law school in Charleston, I applied for a job and was thrilled to get one to teach Torts. I love Charleston. My husband said, after just the first few weeks, it only took you 18 years to find the perfect job. I said to him, most people never find their perfect job.

What do you find the most rewarding about teaching the law?

Zisk: I love to teach. I find it very rewarding to help students begin to understand legal principles and apply them to solve problems that arise not only in law school hypotheticals but also in the real world.

You have had a lot of research published. What’s the most recent work?

Zisk: Touro Law Review, Nancy L. Zisk, The Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education: Achieving Student Body Diversity in All Levels of Education, 38 Touro L. Rev. 101 (2022).