Law School

Northwestern Announces JD-MBA Professorship, $3MM Funding, and Support of JD-MBA Program

Earlier today, I received an email from the Dean of the law school, Dean Van Zandt, and he gave some really good news. He announced that General Dynamics recently made a $3 million donation to Northwestern Law and the Kellogg School of Management. The donation was in made in honor of General Dynamics recently retired CEO, Nicholas D. Chabraja, who as Northwestern law alum worked at the intersection of business and law for many years.

This gift is the first of its kind and will fund a joint professorship between the Law School and the Kellogg School of Management. Doing so, it will provide the support needed to bring Bernard Black to come teach at both campuses here at Northwestern (Northwestern Law and Kellogg). Bernard Black is really accomplished, it’s great we were able to get him here at Northwestern. The donation also will provide support for the JD-MBA program here, which is amazing news for us current students. As usual it’s great to see Northwestern leading the way in the JD-MBA space. The JD-MBA program here is currently the largest and most integrated joint law and business program in the world and the first to introduce a three-year format.

For more details on the donation and the professor, check out the email from the Dean below. To see the press release that Northwestern put out today CLICK HERE. For more information on Northwestern’s JD-MBA program, CLICK HERE.

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To: Northwestern Law Community
From: David E. Van Zandt
Re: $3 Million Gift to Fund Nicholas D. Chabraja Professorship

I am delighted to let you know that the Law School and the Kellogg School of Management have received a $3 Million gift from General Dynamics to honor the retirement of Nicholas Chabraja JD’67 from his position as the company’s Chief Executive Officer.

This gift, the first of its kind, will fund a joint professorship between the Law School and the Kellogg School. It also symbolizes the increasingly integrated fields of law and business and will solidify the strong relationship between the Law School and the Kellogg School and our concerted efforts to prepare students for careers in which these two disciplines converge. The donation also will provide support for our JD-MBA Program, the largest and most integrated joint law and business program in the world and the first to introduce a three-year format.

I am also pleased to announce that Bernard Black will be appointed as the first Nicholas J. Chabraja Professor. Bernie will officially join the Law School in September 2010 with a joint appointment in the Finance Department at the Kellogg School of Management.

Since its formation in 1952, General Dynamics has grown to become one of our nation’s leading defense contractors, specializing in aerospace, combat systems, marine systems, information systems, and technology.

Nicholas Chabraja, also a 1964 alumnus of Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, has enjoyed a distinguished career since graduating from the Law School in 1967. From 1997 until this past June, Nick served as General Dynamics’ Chief Executive Officer and became the longest-serving chief executive among the nation’s top five defense contractors. Since stepping down, he has remained as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of General Dynamics. Prior to his appointment as Chief Executive Officer, Nick held several other important positions at General Dynamics, including Vice Chairman (1996-1997); Executive Vice President (1994-1996); and Senior Vice President & General Counsel (1993-1994). Before his career at General Dynamics, Nick was a litigation partner at the law firm of Jenner & Block for 22 years. In 1986, he was also appointed Special Trial Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Nick has been a consistent supporter of the Law School and is a member of Northwestern’s Board of Trustees.

Bernard Black, a nationally-recognized expert in corporate law and finance as well as health care regulation, currently serves as the Hayden W. Head Regents Chair for Faculty Excellence at the University of Texas School of Law, a professor of finance at the McCombs School of Business, and co-director of the Center for Law, Business, and Economics at the University of Texas.

Prior to these appointments, he was the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford and, prior to that, he was a law professor at Columbia Law School, counsel to a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, an attorney at Skadden Arps in New York, and a clerk for the Hon. Patricia Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Black has also served as a policy advisor to the US government as well as several countries throughout the world, including Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, South Korea, Mongolia, and Vietnam. He has authored or co-authored numerous books and scholarly articles. He received a BA from Princeton, an MA in physics from Berkeley, and a JD from Stanford Law School.

We are extremely grateful to General Dynamics for their generous gift. Please also join me in congratulating Bernard Black as the inaugural holder of this endowed professorship and Nicholas Chabraja on his retirement from a career that has been truly extraordinary.

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Saturday, October 24th, 2009 Business School, Law School 7 Comments

Torts Midterm

I took my torts midterm yesterday early afternoon. For those who don’t know what torts is I’ll briefly explain. Tort law covers the civil (i.e. not criminal) wrongdoings that happen around you, except those happen to be under contractual agreement. It includes all the things you’ve heard of on TV shows like Law And Order … battery, assault, negligence, due care, and more. The classic example of tort law that most professors give at the beginning of class is a “punch in the face,” hence the picture above. And tort law answers questions like is the act a violation, who is at fault, and what is the penalty?

What business students often enjoy about torts is torts’ interplay with economics. In the class we talk a lot about damage calculations, economic efficiency, risk calculations, product liability, and insurance. Many of the JD-MBAs here especially like the “Learned Hand Formula.” This formula is a widely-accepted mathematical model used to test the economic efficiency of a person’s risky actions, and it’s used to determine if someone acted negligently or not. It’s pretty interesting to do the calculation and see how stacks up against what actually happened in the case.

The midterm itself was pretty fun. We had 55 minutes to complete the exam, so it was a mad dash the entire way. The midterm only consisted of one storyline and there three short questions. On any law school exam, we basically have to read the storyline (called a fact pattern), identify the issues, discuss the relevant laws (i.e. tort laws in this case), and then argue for both sides of the case in terms of liability. Midterms usually have dozens of issues, and the more you can spot and discuss articulately, the better off you are. I asked around after the exam, and it sounded like most people typed between 2.5 and 3 pages single-spaced. I ended writing closer to five pages. I am confident that I identified most of the issues. Hopefully the rest of my analysis was up to par.

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Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 Law School No Comments

Midterms

Hey all, it’s been a few days since I’ve last written my last post. In fact, I think this has been the longest I’ve ever gone without posting since I started my blog. Well, that’s because it’s midterm week here at Northwestern, and everything has gotten pretty busy. Personally, I’ve spent most of my time in the library re-reading legal cases, catching up on chapters I skipped earlier in the semester, creating outlines for classes, discussing cases in study groups, and scrambling to memorize legal rules and theories.

Dean’s Email
Just last week, the Dean of Students, Cliff Zimmerman, sent an email to the entire class, reminding us that midterms were on the horizon. In the email he told us that we’re officially half-way done with our first semester of law school. I think he intended to both congratulate us and to scare us. For me, it seems like we just began the semester yesterday, and when I think about it, it’s pretty scary to be half way through already. It’s also pretty inspiring considering the hours I’ve spent in the library, the number of times I’ve had to start over after not understanding so many of these legal cases, and the sheer number of pages I’ve read for class. This is especially true considering that as an MBA applicant, I didn’t even expect to be in law school this year.

But despite all of these warm and fuzzy feelings about accomplishment, I don’t have much time this week to reflect on the past two months or to be inspired. The idea of having midterms is quite stressful, and the notion of getting evaluated in law school is pretty foreign. Additionally, for the JD-MBA crowd, most of us are a bit older, so the thought of grades is a thing of the distant past. But we’re all hanging in there, and everyone seems to be doing pretty well so far.

First Exam
Just this past Sunday, my section took our first midterm exam. It was a take-home exam, and we had three hours to complete it. While most students seemed to have a pretty smooth transaction, I unfortunately didn’t quite have the same luck. Upon logging into Northwestern’s internal website, I found that I didn’t have access to the test. Initially, I thought it was just a simple technical glitch that I’d be able to fix pretty quickly. But then disaster stuck! After about 20 minutes of not being able to grab the test, I realized that I had gotten locked out of the system and that I didn’t have access to the exam.

I tried my best not to panic and ended up calling the professor on her cell phone (kudos to her for giving it out before the exam) and then emailing her as well as her assistant, the class TA, the IT team, and our academic affairs person. I sat for a couple of hours waiting for someone to respond but to my surprise, nothing came. Instead of taking the test at 3:30pm I ended up not getting access until closer to 9:00pm. It was really tough waiting around, so I tried running to the gym, grabbing dinner, and chatting with a few friends as a distraction. After a really long day, I ended up finishing my exam a few minutes before midnight, which was the final submission deadline.

Second Exam
Just yesterday, we had our second midterm. We took the exam in class, and we only had an hour to get through it. Going in, I felt really well-prepared, because I had kept up with the reading all semester and because I studied quite a bit. I read and memorized most of the rules, took a couple of practice tests, and went though a couple of study aids and outlines, but the test still proved to be a challenge. I was a bit nervous going into the exam, but I was pretty surprised that even after the initial shock, I still struggled a bit, and after a couple of post-exam conversations, it became clear that I wasn’t the only one.

During this whole process of taking my first two exams, I found how easy it was to become flustered. Most of us here in law school and in the JD-MBA program have led largely successful careers, and for most of us things have come pretty easily. But even in my first exam, I am reminded that the thing that most of us have done here at law school so far is struggle. We’ve struggled through cases, through late nights in the library, through thick legal theories that we don’t really understand, and sometimes to try not to fall asleep in class. What I’m learning is that people who are successful in law school have to learn how to learn to struggle well….to keep control in tough situations, rebound quickly from the ups and downs, and retool themselves to finish strong.

Relation To Business
Back in the business world before school, I saw that the high-performing leaders were those who did the same in the workplace. These were the people who adapted quickly to change, dealt seamlessly with ambiguity, responded optimistically to challenges, and leveraged the resources around them to get things done. I certainly felt challenged this way the last two days, and with a couple more exams later in the week, I am doing my best to be resilient.

Finishing Up
This is especially important since later in the week I have a Contracts exam, a Torts exam, and a Criminal Law exam. I really like my Criminal Law professor, so I want to do well in that class. I also really enjoy the material in my Contracts and Torts courses, so I’m interested to see how well I understand everything. I know that the rest of the week won’t be easy but I’m going to struggle through it and give it my best. Law school is certainly more work than I ever expected, but I look forward to stepping up to the challenge and growing personally and professionally as a result.

Fortunately, as a reward after my last midterm exam on Sunday, I’m planning to go grab brunch with a friend here at Northwestern. Should be fun and a nice break from all the hustling around this week.

I’ll let everyone know how the rest of my exams turn out. Stay tuned!

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Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 Law School No Comments

Cold Call

One of the things that many business school and law school students fear is being “cold called” in class. Some students think professors are out to get them, others too nervous to speak up in class, and some just unprepared for talk about the case. All those things happen here at Northwestern Law, just like every other school. Fortunately, the population here at the law school is older and more experienced than other law schools, so the students are usually pretty poised and cold calls often go smoothly. Also, the professors here are great. They’re usually pretty accommodating when they engage students in the Socratic method, and they ask lots of leading questions to help us get through rather than make us stumble.

All four of my professors have different styles for cold calling. They all seem to expect different things from us when it comes to level of detail, degree of analysis, and how much they’ll keep prodding after we respond. My Civil Procedure professor likes to go through cases really thoroughly. She expects everyone to be prepared to talk about the tiny little details of the case and then about how they relate to each step in the case process. To be such a technical class, she really does do a great job at illustrating the concepts as part of a bigger story and at keeping things interesting.

On the other end of the spectrum is my Criminal Law professor. He tends to be a bit more easy going about the cold call and at times serves more as a facilitator than a professor. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an incredibly talented professor and is one of the most knowledgeable instructors at the school, but he’s also good at keeping the course interesting and putting students in the position to succeed. Because of his facilitation style, a large number of people volunteer every class. Sometimes, it’s pretty easy to forget who got called on in the first place, which makes the cold call much less intimidating.

My section is about 65 people, so everyone should get called on two times for each class this semester. At Northwestern, there isn’t really a system of being “on call” like some schools have, rather, the process is a bit more random. Some professors go down the list in alpha order and others reverse order. Some just draw a name from the middle of a pile. And others seem to mirror students picked from other classes that week.

Last week, I got called on in Civil Procedure. I didn’t expect to get called on with only a few minutes left in class, but to my surprise I did. I also didn’t expect to get a small obscure case in back of the book, as opposed to the two main cases for class that day, both of which will likely be the core of our midterm. I faired okay, but it wasn’t my best performance. In Contracts, my professor called on me today. It was pretty unexpected, but luckily I got a pretty easy case. As usual, the JD-MBA side came out when I started talking. We discussed the concept of bargaining and talked about how exploitation impacts contractual agreements. For the specific case, I argued that exploitation was okay and that the company with all the negotiating leverage was entitled to win the case. In retrospect, while my comments were probably rational based on the facts they were also “laissez faire” and a bit unsympathetic.

After class, five or six of us went into the atrium and continued the conversation for an hour or so seeing if we could come up with a better answer. But as you might guess, we couldn’t. The cold call specifically and law school generally are often more about reasoning, problem solving, and synthesizing facts, and less about finding the right answer. Navigating this grey area can be really difficult, but discussions typically end up being a lot of fun.

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Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 Law School No Comments

2010 Princeton Review Law School Rankings

Earlier today, Princeton Review released its 2010 rankings of the top full-time U.S. law school programs. The organization ranks law schools in 11 different categories based on student surveys. This year, 172 law schools were eligible.

Despite long-time criticisms about graduate school rankings, law school rankings still play an important role in the world of legal education. When a school’s ranking drops, fewer admitted applicants accept spots at the school (i.e. yield rate), and budgets are often adjusted. Likewise, when a school rises in the rankings, the school often achieve a higher yield rate and an increase in applications. Northwestern Law more than most schools has historically been quite supportive of the ranking system. The schools believes that it provides one way to measure the school’s reputation and progress toward its overall strategic goals.

See below for a look at this year’s school rankings and how Northwestern stacks up:

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First, here are a few of the overall rankings “Career Prospects:”

1. Northwestern
2. Penn
3. Michigan
4. University of Chicago
5. Stanford
6. Boston University
7. Boston College
8. Harvard
9. NYU
10. GULC

Second here are the rankings for “toughest to get into:”

1. Yale
2. Harvard
3. Stanford
4. UC-Berkeley
5. Columbia
6. Penn
7. Northwestern
8. Virginia
9. Chicago
10. Michigan

Third here are the rankings for “quality of life:”

1. Virginia
2. Stanford
3. Chapman
4. St. Thomas
5. Colorado
6. Vanderbilt
7. NYU
8. Oregon
9. Northwestern
10. George Washington

Here are the summary rankings for Northwestern:

Best Career Prospects: #1
Toughest to Get Into #7
Best Quality of Life: # 9 (4th among top law schools),
Best Classroom Experience #10 (5th among the top law schools)

Northwestern has held the No. 1 spot for Best Career Prospects for four of the five years that the Princeton Review has published these rankings. While the difficult economy continues to present immediate challenges to students hitting the job market, this recognition is a testament to our strong reputation. It also affirms our distinctive career-focused strategy and efforts to prepare graduates for successful lifelong careers that will span multiple employers and industries.

As a point of reference, here is how Northwestern ranked in the 2009 U.S. News Rankings:

Overall: 10th
Trial Advocacy: 10th
Clinical Training: 13th
Tax Law: 4th
Legal Writing: 10th
Dispute Resolution: 15th
International Law: 19th
Diversity: 5th

Click here for a full list of Northwestern Rankings.

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Thursday, October 8th, 2009 Admissions, Law School No Comments

Achievement

Just two days ago, I met a future applicant to Northwestern Law, and he asked me to give him a few pointers on how to stand out in his application and how to talk about his past achievements in his personal statement. Similarly, just yesterday, a buddy of mine asked me to review some essays for HBS, including their staple essay “What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such?” Like the gentleman applying to law school, he also wanted help quantifying his past achievements. And just today, I met with a JD-MBA prospect at Northwestern. I chatted with him for over an hour about his application, and he told me about some of the things he had achieved since graduating back in 2005.  And so moving into the first week of October, “Achievement” seems to be a big theme for lots of people I know.

I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking about my own achievements recently. Having recently returned to the life of a student again, it’s hard not to wonder what type of grades I’ll get, what types of jobs I’ll have over the next few years, and ultimately what I’ll be doing many years from now. Every day, I’m working to achieve as much as possible. Doing so, I can’t help but think a lot about my classmates who are going through the same process. Northwestern Law has a lot of sharp kids, and it’s pretty clear that many of them will achieve a lot in their careers. My entire section spends a lot of time in the library, and as a whole everyone seems pretty motivated. I have one friend in particular who I chat with quite a bit. She has as much discipline as anyone I know in the class. She has a 5am early morning study schedule, a laser focus on getting good grades, an ability to block out all the social chaos that comes with law school, and a commitment to doing what it takes to get a great job upon graduation. I am pretty impressed, and I have no doubt that she’ll do really well and achieve everything she’s hoping to.

My point is that thinking about your achievements is something that successful people do for a large part of their lives. It’s inevitable. Although it seems a bit counterintuitive in environments like Northwestern, where the culture is overwhelmingly team-based and where most people come to leave their egos at the door, Northwestern is no exception to the rule. People here think and talk all the time about what they want to individually achieve.

I remember almost 12 months ago when I first began thinking about my achievements. I had just begun my business school applications. My first step after narrowing down the schools I wanted to apply to was thinking long and hard about every single one of my accomplishments. I was forced brainstorm all my major things I’d done in my life, decide which ones were most important to me, analyze which ones had the broadest impact, quantify how each one impacted the people and organizations around me, and finally sum up all the things I learned from the experiences. I took the process pretty seriously, especially in a year full of b-school applicants, and it took months to organize all my thoughts. But this process really paid off, and I recommend all current applicants do the same. I’ll tell you why.

Conventional wisdom says that your past performance (i.e. achievements) is the best indicator of future performance. The theory is that if you’ve achieved a lot in the past, than you’re more likely to do so in the future. Graduate schools bank on this fact when they’re making admissions decisions, especially MBA programs . For example, if you’ve done well in a relevant job, earned good grades in a relevant major, and received strong reviews in a competitive work environment, then odds are you’re more likely to be better prepared to do well in graduate school and eventually in the workforce again.

But this concept doesn’t just apply to admissions, it also applies to job searching. Right now, all of my business school counterparts at Kellogg are currently re-thinking through their accomplishments, as they’re starting the recruiting process. They’re being asked questions such as What was your role at your last job? What have accomplished so far in school? What did you do as club president? and Why should we hire you? The number of behavioral questions can be really challenging, and during an interview you don’t have time to think about your response and you don’t have the leeway to improvise on the spot. You’ve got to come prepared to talk. And if you can do that well, then you’ll probably do quite well in the interview. But don’t be fooled, once my classmates get a job, it doesn’t end there. They’ll still be doing the same after school when they’re interviewing for their second and third jobs and when they’re marketing their companies, offering their services to clients, running political campaigns, and going through performance reviews.

Ultimately, what I’ve learned since starting my application process more than 15 months ago is that being successful necessitates a very high level of reflection. Reflection on past achievements and reflecting on how to use those to ensure success in the future.  It requires being self aware and understanding how your environments effect your ability to succeed. Your abilities and pitfalls. Your blind spots and the things that you excel in. And also the things that are most important to you no matter what your skill level is.

In my own experience, the more I’ve thought about my experiences ahead of time, the better off I’ve been.  That’s because I believe that the best leaders reflect on past experiences all the time. And not only do they think about their successes but they think about their failures. And that’s why they so often have compelling stories, a grand vision for the future, and are able to achieve seemingly impossible results. And in the end, their reflection gives them an arsenal to draw on … not only to achieve a high level of success but also to help others do the same.

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Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 Leadership 2 Comments

MBA Diversity & Hispanic Heritage Month

This weekend, I’ve been doing a lot of research trying to finalize my plans for the NBMBAA (National Black MBA) and NSHMBA (National Hispanic MBA) annual conferences. Having recently won both scholarships as incoming business school student, I am lucky to be able to attend both conferences at no cost. Considering how fortunate I am to be in this position, I’ve been thinking a lot about diversity, and decided I would take a moment to talk a little about it here, especially in light of Hispanic Heritage Month.

I believe that in America today, we are in a “race” to bring diversity to our professional communities. Even in my short career, I’ve already learned that diverse teams are essential to success in the market place. Just as cross-functional teams are used to create value in the market, so too do cross-cultural teams offer the richest possibility to improve our businesses, laws, and policies in today’s diverse economy. Hispanic Americans represent a large part of this diversity. They make up more than 15% of the US population and add immeasurable value to America’s economy and its communities.

Coming from Arizona, I experienced this firsthand, where Hispanics represent nearly a third of the population and where they contribute to every single part of the economy, white collar and blue collar. Hispanic Heritage Month is the period to recognize all of this value that the Hispanic Americans have had in the United States and a time to celebrate their culture. The observation of the month started in 1968, and more than 40 years later the event is still largely celebrated. The month begins on September 15th, because that day represents the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua (Mexico and Chile also celebrate their anniversaries in September)

Here at Northwestern Law, a good friend of mine happens to be the Hispanic Heritage month Co-Chair for the Latino Law Students Association. She’s currently a 2L, and she’s putting together a wide range of events to recognize the efforts of the Hispanic here in the US. Knowing her dedication to the club and to Northwestern, I am certain the events are going to be terrific.

I don’t know exactly what she has in mind, but I suspect it will be something to engage the entire community. An obvious first point of reference being in law school is Sonia Sotomayor, our new US Supreme Court justice. Sotomayor is now the first Hispanic American ever to serve the court, as well as only the third woman. Not only is it a monumental moment in history, but it’s also at a time when our economy needs her most.

As the economic crisis still looms over the business and legal worlds, progressive schools have realized that recruiting exceptional Hispanic and other underrepresented minority students is one of the keys to re-establishing America’s long-term success. At the top 20 MBA programs, there are still only 7% to 10% blacks and Hispanics, and in the world of Fortune 500 companies and blue chip law firms, the percentage of CEO’s and Senior Partners is about half that.

Although our integration process is still far from complete, we do continue to see progress take place at top graduate schools, especially business schools. Kudos to organizations such as the National Society of Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA), Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), and the Consortium Scholarship Program, which give access to Hispanic (and other minority) scholarships and professional training.   I suggest that anyone who qualifies for these programs consider them as you are applying. And as usual, I’ll give a special endorsement for MLT, where the best and the brightest come while applying the business school.

But for a moment, what’s more important than winning scholarships and fine tuning your career is that on September 15th we all take a moment to reflect and appreciate the impact that Hispanics and all minorities have had on all of our lives. Furthermore, we should also understand that to further improve our society, it’s imperative that we continue to increase the diversity in our schools as well as at all levels of our labor force and ultimately work in teams together. Only then will we be able to put everyone in our nation to their best use and collectively unlock our greatest potential for change.

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Monday, September 14th, 2009 Business School, Diversity 12 Comments

Korean Popstar In My Section And Diversity At Northwestern

My section has a lot of the really interesting people this year. It turns out that in addition to the 19-year old I recently posted about, I also sit next to a Korean pop star. Literally.  My section mate, who for now wishes to remain anonymous, graduated from a Korean University with a degree in English literature. And although she made her living as a performer overseas after graduation, she recently gave it all up for the chance to come to Northwestern Law and eventually change the world.

Since graduation, my section mate has been making a living by performing in Asia. Sounds like the good life, right? After all, don’t we all want to grow up to be pop stars! Well, despite loving her former career, she ultimately chose to come to Northwestern Law to become an international human rights lawyer, though I’ll note that she does also plan to continue performing after school. My classmate is a really great addition to the section, and we’ve already become library buddies during the first two weeks.

While having a pop star in my section is certainly unique, I think the general notion of having varied professional and ethnic backgrounds is old news to Northwestern Law, statistically the most diverse law school in the world. It’s also water under the bridge for top MBA programs, which constantly aim for as diverse a class as possible. In today’s professional community, diversity is the standard, so schools are trying to reflect that in their learning environments. Schools not only welcome, but they also embrace a student body enriched by various nationalities, cultures, interests, and points of view.

Practically speaking, the core of our learning model in law school, the Socratic method, continually reinforces this notion. In the Socratic Method, students must continually demonstrate the ability to work across boundaries. They must absorb multiple perspectives while still articulating their own views. They must also demonstrate the ability to work with and through other people. A capacity to confront a wide variety of issues, both legal and non legal. And the facility to build consensus amidst a variety of competing opinions and perspectives.

As law students, we by no means do any of this perfectly. However, the diversity here makes it a great place to learn many of these critical professional skills.

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Friday, September 11th, 2009 Diversity, Law School 2 Comments

US Supreme Court Justice Comes to Northwestern

Next week, Northwestern Law hosts one of our most prestigious annual programs: The Howard J. Trienens Visiting Judicial Scholar Program. This year, United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be here to interact with students and faculty and provide her perspective on contemporary legal issues. In addition to various scheduled activities, Justice Ginsburg will participate in a discussion in front of the Northwestern Law community followed by a Q&A session.

The capacicity for this event was pretty limited, and the tickets were all gone in about 30 minutes. Fortunately I was able to get a ticket. And thanks to a quick email by the JD-MBA google group, a lot of the other JD-MBAs were able to get tickets as well. I am pretty excited for this event, especially given my potential longer term interest in government. Getting access to both schools for events like this is one of the things that makes a JD-MBA so attractive, and I look forward to taking part in speakers events at both. I’ll let you know how the event turns out.

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Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 Law School 7 Comments

19-Year Old Classmate in My Section

Eight years ago when I was 18, I was a senior in high school. I had just applied to college, and I was still chasing my pipe dream of playing in the NBA, not to mention spending a lot of time chasing girls. But one year ago, the then 18 year old Kate McLaughlin had other things on her mind. Instead of chasing romance or a pipe dream, Kate was tutoring college kids at on test prep strategies Kaplan, acing the LSAT, and getting accepted to law school.

In her academic career, Kate skipped six grades, enrolled in community college at age 12, and graduated from UC San Diego at 17. She scored a 174 on the LSAT (~99th percentile), which is equivalent to about a 740 on the GMAT. Most people here spent 7 or 8 years doing other things before they could attain similar scores.

Kate is an unusual addition to Northwestern’s roster which usually touts older, more experienced students than most schools. I’m not sure what Northwestern’s agenda is here, perhaps they simply want to take a smart applicant who is a fit for the school (aside from age), perhaps they want the publicity of having Kate here, or perhaps something else, who really knows? But what I do know is that I spoke with Kate once briefly, and she seems REALLY smart. I wish her the best this year, and look forward to working with her in all of my classes.

Click here to see the original post on Kate by American Bar Association.

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Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 Admissions, Law School 6 Comments

First Day of Law School

After eight months of impatiently waiting and two weeks of chaos during orientation, it finally happened. Just Monday I began my first day as a JD-MBA student at Northwestern Law. I can already tell it’s not only going to be an incredible journey but also a long one. For one, I’ve got about 1,000 days until the bar exam, should I decide to take it. I’ve got another 200 or so days until my last day as a 1L. That will be a huge day of celebration. I’ve got about 100 days until my first midterm. I’ve got 2 days until my first “official” bar review. And finally, I’ve got at least another 10-12 hours or so until I can leave the library and go home from school today. I look forward to all of it.

It all started this past Monday, when I began my first class at 8:45 am. Before class, everyone was on Facebook and Twitter posting about heading to their first day of law school. I did the same, and got a really great response from all my facebook friends. My first course was Contracts As a JD-MBA student I love contracts, because the topic sits at the intersection between both business and law. The class will be quite practical in the long run, and even now it makes a lot of sense for me, since I drafted contracts regularly at my old company. The MBA side of me came out right away in the first class, when we were discussing the idea that contracts are “promises”. While most people in the class were talking about friendships and “Moral Obligation” (a term often used in contracts), I couldn’t help but bring up the notion of incentives and how those affect contracts. Personally, I believe that most of what we do in life is driven most by incentives, incentives for money, incentives to be liked, incentives to manage relationships, etc.

After Contracts, we had Torts. More important than why the name of the class is Torts, which I don’t actually know the answer to, is the fact that our professor is a rockstar. Professor Speta is a great speaker, is as sharp as they come, and is definitely a good entertainer. He employs the Socratic method and case method for the entire class and always seems to have an agenda for everything he does, including the specific person he calls on. In fact, he reminds me a lot of the professors I encountered visiting HBS, another school I considered attending.

My last class of the day was Civil Procedure. The class was a lot better than I expected, and a lot less dry as well. In fact, I think it may end up being one of my favorite classes. Although even if it weren’t, I couldn’t say so. Our professor just so happens to be the wife of the school Dean. So we’ve got to be extra nice all semester long.

But more than all the classes, what we did on Monday was get to know our section team members. Northwestern believes that the first step to a great career is having a strong team foundation. Developing relationships with members in your section is an important process. And although that will take time, the fastest way to start this process is through shared experience. This is probably part of why school gives us so much work so quickly.

Coming from a business background as a JD-MBA and former consultant, this topic is not new. Having worked on a couple of human capital engagements in the past, I’m quite familiar with the perceived benefits of shared experiences and with team-building activities. It’s been two days so far, but so far my section seems really great, friendly, and of course, very diverse – a staple of Northwestern Law. I look forward to working with them over the next 9 months.

What’s also great is that the JD-MBAs are pretty evenly spread among all the sections. My section has five or six and the other sections have anywhere from five to eight. While we try and succeed at integrating in the sections during the day, the JD-MBA crowd is very close. We started a Google Group list back in March, so we’ve been in touch daily ever since then. Also, we’ve already had a couple of huge gatherings before school began, including two that I organized and hosted during orientation. It’s definitely going to be a great couple of years together.

But for now, I’ve got to stay grounded in the here-and-now, because I still have massive amounts of reading to do for today, tomorrow, and Friday. It feels like I’m drinking from a fire hose, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Everybody does.

Anyhow, thanks for reading my first official post as a student. Please keep reading and feel free to comment as I continue to share perspectives on my JD-MBA experience.

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Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 Law School 3 Comments

First Day of Orientation

I just finished my first day of orientation at the law school today. Today’s schedule was broken up into two parts. In the morning from 9am to 1pm, we went to the school to take care of a few administrative things, such as getting our bus passes, books, lockers, ID cards, Facebook photos, and free T-shirts. Pretty simple morning, especially considering I did a lot of this stuff last week at the Summer Pre-Law Program.

At 1pm all of us went to the auditorium for the official orientation events. We began with the Official Ceremony led by the Dean Van Zandt, the Dean of the Law School. He is a really good public speaker and a pretty funny guy. I enjoyed his session. After that, we had a few more speaker sessions, some of which people thought were a bit long. The best session of the day was named “The First Day of Your Professional Lie in the Law” by professor Lupo. It was a lot more interactive than the others and he’s a really engaging speaker. The jury is still out as to how useful all of these sessions really were in terms of learning about the school, but for me I really enjoyed being able to meet lots of people. I’ll definitely be doing a lot more of that over the next few days and evenings.

Of the people I’ve met so far, everyone seems to be really accomplished and interesting. For one, we have a 19 year old beginning the program, who graduated undergrad at 16. We also have quite a few older, more experienced students beginning the program. Many of these folks have worked in various industries, overseas, and in entrepreneurial roles. And we have a ton of interesting and highly successful JD-MBAs. Even though I am probably a bit biased, they definitely have some of the most impressive resumes, including a few business owners, private equity guys, hedge fund folks, consultants, non-profit managers, and government and legal services professionals. Stay tuned to my blog, as I plan to begin profiling my JD-MBA classmates shortly.

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Monday, August 24th, 2009 Law School 1 Comment

Summer Pre-Law Program and My Intro to the Case Method

Ever since high school, I’ve preferred energizing teachers who were entertaining and got me to pay close attention for class. Unfortunately these teachers have sometimes been in the minority, even at Stanford, because many teachers focused more on research more than on their teaching styles. But the good news is that business school and law school are quite different. Both have some pretty unique teaching methods to keep students engaged and participating in class. Among others are the case method courses, learning team discussions, multimedia simulations, experiential learning courses, and interactive lectures. And king among these is the case method.

The case method is a teaching approach that consists of presenting the students with a case putting them in the role of the decision-maker facing a problem. While some schools employ this more than others (for example Harvard Business School and The University of Virginia Darden), many schools do make use of it, and it’s hard to debate that the case method is best at keeping you attentive in class.

In a case discussion, students are forced to constantly pay attention to what’s being said, to continually integrate everything as the class moves forward, to synthesize hours of reading the night before, and to think one-step ahead of the discussion. You do this all while being prepared to jump into the conversation and provide relevant, timely, and insightful comments. This is a complete 180-degree turn from my time at Stanford, where many of my classes were often about professors lecturing for the full class and dumping thousands of facts into our heads.

Most people think the case method exists only in business school, but that’s not true at all. The case method, originally called the casebook method, has been around in law school longer than in business school. For a given class, a professor will assign several cases from the casebook to read, and the professor will ask students questions, pushing students to discuss legal rules and think critically about the ambiguous situations. As part of the experience, students discuss opposing viewpoints, and the professor will debate with students by asking and answering questions (i.e. Socratic Method). This is all done to stimulate thinking, empower students to come up with ideas, and illustrate concepts and theories.

Just last week, I experienced this in my Summer Law Prep Program at Northwestern. The summer prep program is for incoming first year students who want to get a head start on law school before classes actually begin. The program received applications from most of the incoming Northwestern class, and they selected 30 or so participants. We spent the full day, from 9:00am to 4:30pm, taking classes, listening to panels, reading legal cases, and participating in case discussions. During the week we learned from various members of Northwestern Law’s faculty, met with current students, and visited attorneys at the sponsoring law firm based in Chicago. Just this past Wednesday, this law firm was gracious enough to host us at their offices and provide us with a nice meal and chat with us about working in the legal industry.

For me, the program really helped illuminate what it really takes to do well in case discussions. I also noticed how the case discussion at the law school is different from the case discussions in business school. In law school, the discussions tend be a bit more focused than b-school discussions. Also, law students tend to focus on the details of a case, whereas MBAs are more interested in the broader implications. Additionally, in law school the cases are shorter, more technical, and care more about building consensus among differing opinions, whereas business school cases often extend for an entire class, are more cross-functional in nature, and value the individual perspectives.

That said, the one similarity I found is that for the truly engaged participant, the case method can help to refine your professional leadership style. Think about it for a second. Just like working the real world, as a student you have to analyze a variety of difficult issues and engage in high-stakes discussions where the results that have complex economic and political effects. In preparation for the discussion before class, you have to uncover the issues at hand, develop supporting analysis, and come up with recommendations, all under time pressure and with limited information available.

In the classroom, you must articulate your response in front of smart and sometimes critical classmates, most who have different perspectives than you and many whom you want to impress. These are the experiences business and legal leaders go through every day, and in a case discussion, you get the chance to practice that over and over again. I am excited to take these these types of courses at both business and law school. And I’m thankful to have a head start because of my summer program at Northwestern.

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Monday, August 24th, 2009 Law School, Leadership No Comments

Kellogg Incoming Class Profile: Innovation Still Reigns

The Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern) recently released statistics for its Class of 2011, revealing what I think is a pretty unique trend at Northwestern. First, here are a few of the general statistics:

In the 08-09 season, there were 5,795 applicants, 689 enrolled students, of which 33 percent are female, 21 percent are U.S. ethnic minorities and 30 percent are international students. The average GMAT is 708, 45% of admits scored between 700 and 740, and 32% majored in business administration prior to school.

The biggest differences from last year are as follows: there were about ~700 additional applicants, 38 additional admitted students, a decrease in average GMAT by 4 points, a 3% decrease in ethnic minorities, a 2% decrease in women, and a 5% decrease in international students. The stats, especially the decrease in GMAT, are pretty shocking considering how competitive a year it was. I would have suspected that Kellogg could have had its choice of candidates and put together a class similar to last year’s.

But for me, perhaps most interesting among the statistics was that 163 of the students, or almost 24%, will be part of innovative MBA programs, including the MMM, JD-MBA, or 1-year MBA. Last year, Kellogg had 165 of these students (~25%). This represents a radical departure from the typical 2-year MBA option which for decades has been the standard and still is the standard at most other schools.

In general, Northwestern has been leading the trend on developing these innovative, accelerated programs. And it’s working. The JD-MBA program applications were up by about 50% this year, demonstrating a trend of increasing interest among applicants. While many folks believe it’s fair to debate the merits of these programs, schools are saying otherwise, as both U-Penn and Yale created a 3-year accelerated JD-MBA program this year and Sloan has implemented a program similar to the MMM a little while back. In addition, Northwestern Law has recently come out with a 2-year JD program that is beginning this year. Interesting to think about what Northwestern will do next and which schools will be next to follow the trend.

For more details on the Kellogg Class of 2011 profile, click here.

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Thursday, August 20th, 2009 Business School 3 Comments

A World Apart

Hey everyone. So I just arrived in Chicago this past week. It’s definitely a lot different here, and a world apart from Phoenix, where I spent the summer, and from Boston, where I spent the past two years. Fortunately, I won’t have to deal with any more 100 degree weather. I also don’t have to deal with having a car, since I’m living in downtown Chicago which is a nice convenience.

First off, the area is pretty interesting. My apartment sits less than one block away from Lake Michigan, and the picture above is taken right from the window in my room. Surrounding my apartment is all of downtown Chicago, which consists of lots of really nice apartment buildings, Northwestern’s 20+ acre downtown campus, the beach, and the magnificent mile. If you don’t know that magnificent mile, it’s a world-renown shopping district that goes through the city of Chicago. It has all the top shopping spots, nice restaurants, tons of people in the summer, and lots other of things to do.

My building is about a 4 minute walk from the law school campus, which sits adjacent to the Kellogg Executive Campus (downtown) and the Med School campus. Generally, in the morning students are hustling about through the city to go to class and professionals are walking or taking the metro to work. In the summer, people are always outside, either running, tanning on the beach, swimming, or just enjoying the warm weather while we have it, since Chicago does get extremely cold in the winter.

It’s a big change to be headed back to school again after a few years off. I’ve spent a lot of time in the law school since I’ve been here. Not everyone is here on campus yet, but when you enter into the law school, it’s a surprise to see people in jeans and t-shirts and starring at laptops rather than taking in all the city has to offer, especially in the summer. But I’d expect nothing less at law school. The kids seem to be a bit more serious than the b-school kids. They’re definitely sharp, but they also seem to want to work really hard. And since law school grading is based on a curve, it seems like we’ll all be spending a lot more time in the books than I will be next year at Kellogg.

In terms of facilities, the law school building is nothing like that of Kellogg. Kellogg is actually pretty old for a business school, though fortunately a new building is in the works. However, the law school has some of the most attractive physical facilities of any law school and the best location of any major urban law school, since it has prime real estate downtown less than a block from the lake and beach.

School wise, this week I’m doing a summer preparation program that Northwestern has, which is sponsored by one of Chicago’s bigger law firms. The point of the program is to allow a handful of the students to get a head start on how to prepare for law school. Basically, we all had to apply to this program a few weeks ago, and the school accepted about 30 of us. Today was the first day of the program, and we are learning about things such as outlining, briefing cases, performing the Socratic Method, and other similar things. All these things are pretty foreign to me, since I’ve been in business the past few years.

But despite being a world apart, I’m pretty excited to learn a bit about the legal industry. I plan to post a little about my experience in this program later in the week. Stay tuned!

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Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 Business School, Law School 5 Comments

Never Eat Alone

Leading at a law firm or at a business today is dramatically different than it was many years ago.  The world is bigger, information travels through different channels, and organizations and processees are far more complex than they were before. So how can you still influence important decisions and shephard important deals in the midst of this complexity?  In my view, it all starts with building good relationships.

A colleague of mine recently recommended I read the book “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi. He recently gave it a read, and he told me that my style and background reminded him a lot of Keith.  I didn’t think too much of it at first, but trusted his opinion so figured it might be worth a shot. So I picked up the book about two weeks ago and just finished reading. It’s definitely a good read. It’s definitely relevant for those in the MBA world. And my colleague was definitely correct. I’ve found a number of things in common with Keith.

In the book, Keith lays out the specific steps he uses to connect and stay in contact with others—friends, colleagues, family, and associates. He basically sees the world around him as a place that should be based on generosity, where he helps friends and colleagues, and helps people connect with each other, rather than networking for personal gain.

I enjoy his approaches and theories about networking and also agree with the emphasis he places on it. But whether or not you agree with his philosophies, I think the topic is very relevant for all of us MBA applicants/admits/students. In MBA programs, students’ schedules are jam packed 7 days a week–studying for class, practicing cases, attending and planning events, meeting with professors, and the list goes on.  We will all interact with thousands of different people in a 2-year span. And if you’re on your game, this process begins well before we ever set foot in our first class.

As such, I think it’s important to think about what you want to get out of those interactions. Perhaps you want to run for a specific club leadership role or maybe student government. Perhaps, you want to meet everyone in a certain company or industry or maybe just find the right colleague who can prep us for a job interview. Perhaps you want to make sure you have a huge network after school or maybe even just have a really good time there. Maybe you want to do all of that. No matter what your goals are, making friends and contacts is an important part of school.

We don’t all have to be power networkers, but I think it’s important that we figure out how we want to balance our networking energies and schedules with everything else. And while most of us will have some preconceptions about our strategies going in, I suspect that we really don’t know yet, so it will be a lot of learning as we go. One thing I do know is that once my program begins, I don’t plan on eating alone too many times.

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Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 Business School 7 Comments

Last Day of My Summer Internship at the Attorney General’s Office

To gain some exposure in business and law before beginning my JD-MBA program this fall, I’ve been clerking at the Attorney General’s office. I began there in May, and today was my last day in the office. I also looked into business jobs, but since I’ve been in the consulting industry for the past 3.5 years I thought a legal internship would be more useful, especially since I want to explore the legal profession while in school.

In my internship I had the chance to work with the Community Services Division, the Consumer Information Division, and the Executive Office–where I spent the majority of my time. It’s been a great way to learn broadly about the work the AG does. Being in the executive office has also been a lot of fun. A few weeks ago, the Attorney General had a going away party for one of workers at his house. It was a nice event, and I got to really talk with the Attorneys on a personal level. I’ve also had the chance to help manage the press in our office, to have a Q&A with a Supreme Court Justice, and to help orchestrate a meeting with the AG and Obama’s newly elected “Border Czar” (Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security).

Aside from the obvious learning and networking benefits, I also think my experience will give me a heads up on recruiting in the program. While many law students pursue government or legal aid positions after their first year, I’ll have the experience to be able to explore other types of work since I’ve already done that. I definitely recommend that everyone try to get a good summer experience before going off to school–whether business or law–to set you apart in your graduate school career search.

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Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 Careers No Comments

Kellogg/Northwestern Housing

Unlike my Kellogg MBA classmates, this year I’ll be living in downtown Chicago and not Evanston. The JD-MBA program begins at the law school, which is downtown, and I want to live as close to campus as possible. Once I begin my studies my second year at Kellogg, I’ll plan to move down to Evanston.

Aside from not seeing a lot of my Kellogg buddies regularly, I’m pretty psyched to live downtown. Chicago is an amazing city; it’s open late (4 and 5 am), has a lot of fun spots, has lots of cool people, and is cheap relative to comparable big cities (NYC, SF, LA, Boston). What’s also great is that there are a lot of places to stay that are just a two blocks or so from the law school campus.

I’ll be living downtown in a high rise at the end of on East Ohio. It’s on the 40th floor and has a view of the beach on Lake Michigan. It’s a great building that’s pretty new, includes utilities in the rent, has a modern design, and has a gym, lap pool, and free business center inside. A lot of the JD-MBAs and law students will be there, so I suspect it will be a really good time. All you Kellogg’ers should definitely give me a shout when you make it out to the city, which I hear is about once per week for many of you.

Speaking of Kellogg folks, I’ve recently chatted with a lot of Kellogg friends about Evanston housing decisions for the first year. A lot of the new admits I’ve met will be living in one of two places.

1) The Reserve. I hear this place is the best deal for how nice the place is. Everything is new there, and it also has a gym which is a nice selling point. The downside is that I’ve heard some people don’t enjoy the neighborhood because its noisy with too many students.

2) McManus. This is a nice seven-story apartment complex that’s pretty central to campus. It’s definitely convenient, close to campus, includes utilities, and is filled with Kellogg kids. This place is great, because you can leave for the summer without having any fees. The negative here is that it feels a bit dormy.

Of all the alternatives I’ve heard of, McManus is the most appealing to me. But I’ve got a long time until I need be thinking about it.

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Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 Law School 1 Comment

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Jeremy C Wilson is a JD-MBA alumni using his site to share information on education, the social enterprise revolution, entrepreneurship, and doing things differently. Feel free to send along questions or comments as you read.

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The contents of this blog are mine personally and do not reflect the views or position of Kellogg, Northwestern Law, the JD-MBA program, or any firm that I work for. I only offer my own perspective on all issues.
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