Professor Johnson states that “these outrages in the criminal justice system highlight biases that can distort fundamental American principles: ‘Whose life has value? Whose life does not have value? Who has credibility and who doesn’t? Who is prone to criminality, who is prone to victimization?’”
Professor Roy Gutterman comments to Reuters on the Sarah Palin – New York Times defamation case: “This is a lawsuit over an editorial, essentially an opinion. This is a potentially dangerous area.”
Commercial and bankruptcy law expert Professor Gregory Germain provides insight into low APR credit cards, noting “I think the Motown group The Miracles gave the best answer to this question: “My mama told me, you better shop around (shop, shop). Oh yeah, you better shop around.” This applies not just to credit card interest rates but all credit card terms, including cash back offers, annual fees and other charges and credit limits.” Read his full answer to What can people do to increase their odds of getting lower APRs on their credit cards?
Germain also answers the question, What are the possible advantages and disadvantages of adding authorized users to a primary credit card with regards to earning rewards? “When I teach commercial law, I tell my students that we have another name for someone who guarantees a debt for a friend or relative. We call the guarantor ‘a fool with a pen.’” Read his entire answer here.
In the article, Professor Nina Kohn, Faculty Director of Online Education, says, “COVID-19 has shown us that there are many ways to deliver legal education. It does not have to be one size fits all.”
Syracuse University College of Law has announced that College of Law alumnus and Fixt Founder and corporate executive Luke Cooper L’01 will serve as its Commencement Speaker on May 6, 2022. Cooper is presently CEO of Latimer Ventures, a Partner at San Francisco-based Preface Ventures, and 2022 Visiting Scholar at the University of Maryland Baltimore, which encompasses Maryland’s Law School, Medical School, and other graduate programs.
“Luke has been a strategic planner, technology innovator, and product developer for more than 20 years,” says Dean Craig M. Boise. “We are honored to welcome him back to Syracuse University and look forward to hearing about his entrepreneurial successes and how his law degree from the College of Law and personal life experiences have shaped his leadership style and professional pursuits.”
In a 2020 Stories Book article, Cooper credits Syracuse Law with developing skills in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and advocacy that have fueled his successes. Importantly, Cooper is passionate about building diverse and inclusive work cultures and lifting up Black entrepreneurs.
Cooper, who built and sold his first cyber startup to CACI in 2011, founded the device support platform Fixt, which he sold to Assurant in 2020. He is only the second Black tech entrepreneur to see a company through to a successful exit in Baltimore, MD. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation and has been appointed by Gov. Larry Hogan to serve on the Board of Directors of Maryland’s TEDCO.
Cooper’s upcoming memoir—Mud to Magic: A Black Tech Entrepreneur’s Inspiring Journey (2022)—will tell his life story and share his powerful message, that showing up as your most authentic self will drive the best outcomes.
Professor Shubha Ghosh, Director of the Syracuse Intellectual Property Law Institute, will participate in the workshop, “Research on Standard-Essential Patents and Patent Exhaustion”, being held January 31-February 1 by the Japan Patent Office. Ghosh will provide legal insight and perspectives on these timely patent issues.
In the Standard-Essential Patents (SEP) workshop, the program will include a report on the latest global trends in SEPs and a panel discussion on standard essential patents from various perspectives, in addition to the interim report of the results.
In the Patent Exhaustion workshop, the program will include a lecture on the state of Patent Exhaustion in the age of IoT and a panel discussion on the utilization of method patents in the change in industrial structure from “things” to “services”, in addition to the interim report of the results.
National Public Radio recently interviewed Renci “Mercy” Xie LL.M. ‘20 and currently a doctoral candidate in the S.J.D. program for the story, “China excels at the Paralympics, but its disabled citizens are fighting for access.” Xie, who is focusing her degree on disability law, recounts the hurdles she faced growing up with a disability in China.
A strong relationship can be defined in a variety of ways. For Stacy Wright L’10 and Andrew Wright L’10, studying for the bar exam together was just a confirmation that the two of them can make it through anything together.
After receiving rankings for their first semester at the College of Law, Stacy was on a mission to find the number one ranked student, but little did she know that the mysterious student was her future husband.
“When we got back to school after our 1L first semester, and we got our rankings and I jokingly said to some of my friends ‘I want to meet whoever was number one in the class because I could use some work,’ and they told me I wouldn’t know him since he never goes out because he’s always studying,” Stacy said.
Stacy was not deterred by Andrew’s mysteriousness, and they finally met during their first summer. Andrew and Stacy began to spend a lot of time together inside and outside of school.
By their third year, they were practically living together, despite renting separate places. They appreciated the balance they provided each other, and as they spent more and more time together, both realized how much they valued the other’s presence as they challenged each other to grow into different and better people.
“I think we’re similar in lots of ways, but we’re opposites in lots of good ways, too. I think that the more time we spent together in my second and third years of law school, the more I came to appreciate those things and I think she helped me grow into a different person than I was during the first year of law school,” Andrew said.
As law school ended, Andrew was planning to move to Buffalo, N.Y. after accepting a position with Hodgson Russ LLP, but realized he desperately wanted Stacy to join him. In April of 2010, Andrew asked Stacy to marry him and move to Buffalo together, and despite being from Miami, FL., Stacy said yes to both proposals.
“I knew he was the one when I said yes, but it was reaffirmed when we survived studying for the bar together,” Stacy said. “We could make it through anything after that.”
Today, Andrew is still with Hodgson Russ LLP working as a partner in the state and local tax group and Stacy is in-house counsel for the London Stock Exchange Group. They have three children and will be forever grateful for the College of Law, as it changed their lives in the best possible way.
“I met Mr. ‘Right’ and the rest was history,” Stacy said. “We fell in love.”
Nichole Thompson L’95 met the man of her dreams at her undergraduate college, Clark Atlanta University, and thought she had to say goodbye to him for three years when she came to Syracuse in 1992 for law school. Little did she know that in 1993 the man of her dreams, Troy Thompson L’96, would follow her to Syracuse and join her at the College of Law.
Growing up in New York City, Nichole knew that she wanted to go to Syracuse for law school, as she wanted to pursue a degree in communications as well. Her initial goal was to enter the field of entertainment law, but she also knew that she wanted to return to Atlanta after law school.
During her undergraduate experience, Nichole was a part of the Divine Nine Panhellenic Council, where she met Troy and the two immediately hit it off. Both held leadership positions and their friendship quickly kindled into a romance.
“There was a spark that just drove me towards his connection because of his intellectual probe and his ability to not just look at me as a beautiful woman, but as a beautiful mind, and we were connected in that space,” Nichole says.
After separating post-graduation so Nichole could follow her dreams of pursuing entertainment law, the two talked every night on the phone, with Nichole telling Troy about all of her coursework and exciting College of Law opportunities that she was experiencing.
“He said ‘you know what, I think I’m going to apply’ and I couldn’t believe it,” Nichole says. “And low and behold, he joined me the next year as a law student.”
In 1994, Nichole and Troy were married and welcomed their first child while still vigorously pursuing their law degrees. Despite the obvious challenges of raising a child while simultaneously seeking a law degree, Nichole and Troy flourished and had what they believe to be their most successful semester.
After graduation, the couple moved back to Atlanta, with three daughters eventually joining their family. Their son is a lieutenant in the Navy, their oldest daughter is an accountant, their middle daughter is finishing her undergraduate experience with the hopes of being a psychiatrist, and their youngest daughter is heading off to high school soon.
Although Nichole expected to pursue entertainment law, she quickly learned that she had a knack for Human Resources (HR). Over the last 25 years, Nichole has worked in an HR capacity at Target and at Union Pacific Railroads, which helped pave the way for other senior-level HR positions. Today Nichole is the Senior Vice President of HR and the Chief People Officer at FLS Transport. Since Troy’s time at Clark Atlanta, his passion has always centered around technology. As President of Business Development and Government Relations at Judicial Innovations, Troy can blend his passion for technology and law together.
“I certainly can only speak to what I know and what I know is that Syracuse forged an indelible relationship between my husband and me, and the start of our family,” Nichole says. “The fact that we were married there, matriculated through the law school, and then had our first child there, those are memories and those are lasting impressions that are very favorable for us. It delved into a love of the institution that you can’t get in any other way.”
In the last two Stories Books, we examined the intersection of law, creative pursuits, and other disciplines not often associated with the practice of law: fiction and non-fiction writing (2020) and music (2021). This year, we turn our attention to athletics.
How does one transition from the playing field to the courtroom or the boardroom? What are the connections between such physical and intellectual pursuits? What are the transferable skills and lessons, from sports practice and play to law school and the practice of law? We spoke with College of Law alumni and a current student who have competed in sports at the highest levels in both team and individual disciplines to learn how their experiences as athletes have informed their careers.
On Humility
Frank W. Ryan IV ’90, L’94 (Syracuse University Wrestling 1987-1990) Americas Chair, Global Co-Chair, and Global Co-CEO, DLA Piper
Wrestling teaches you humility. Mistakes on the mat lead to embarrassment. You must prepare to be humbled. You see your teammates struggle, press, and find out who they really are when the storm hits.
David Moffitt L’96 (Professional hockey 1984-1986, Erie Golden Blades, Mohawk Valley Comets, Flint Spirit, 1996 Binghamton Whalers) Co-Head of US Credit Management, Investcorp
What hockey or any sport teaches you is a sense of selflessness and that you succeed as a team. You know there’s a time when you will sacrifice for the team without a quid pro quo, and if you do the right thing, you hope the right thing happens to you. It’s a nice intellectual approach but doesn’t always work out that way…
3L Tia Thevenin ’18 (Syracuse University Women’s Track & Field, 2014-2018; Canadian National Track & Field team, 2013-2020) Syracuse Law Student, 3L
All athletes should go to law school! I say that to my friends who are still competing. The determination and discipline are the same in both. You are used to being knocked down as an athlete. First-year law school will humble you, and you need the will to wake up the next day and get it done. There’s a quote from the track, “success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.” That is exactly what law school is. You are going to fail and fail and win and fail, and you have to have that spark and enthusiasm.
On Teamwork
Matthew J. Moore ’91, L’95 (Syracuse University Men’s Lacrosse, 1988-1991, three-time National Champion; Professional lacrosse, Philadelphia Wings 1992-1993) Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP, Global Vice Chair of the Technology Industry Group, and a former Global Co-Chair of Latham & Watkins’ Intellectual Property Litigation Practice.
I learned so much from being on the SU Lacrosse team, such as the importance of preparation and how to prepare; how to support your teammates, and how to be a leader. Sports are all about competition and getting the best out of you and your team, and we learned how to get the best from ourselves, our teammates, and our team. When you were on that team, one of the fun yet challenging things is that every game you play is the biggest game on your opponent’s schedule. Our ability to be mentally and physically prepared for every game was special. It was expected that you would bring 100% every day; otherwise, you would be letting the team down. This work ethic was critical to the next-man-up philosophy that helped those teams win game after game. That work ethic – if you can take that experience and translate it to any job-you’ll be successful.
A trial is also a team sport. I might do the opening and the closing, but if the documents are not ready when I reach for them, the team is not positioned for success. You need the mouthpiece, the people that understand the technology, the people that help with the examination outlines, the people who know the record, the logistics of getting the witnesses at the right time, and so much more. You must value all the people who put it all together with you equally because you would not succeed without them.
Ryan: Student-athletes can be powerful lawyers. Great athletes learn the selflessness critical to being an effective teammate, which translates well in the legal industry. Teamwork, equality, and hard work all equal success in sports and law.
Thevenin: I use the lessons learned through my athletic experiences every single day in law school, and this was true especially during my first year. Things come at you fast in the 1L year.
My classmates are my teammates. True, we are ranked, and that’s a mechanism that can divide us, so some people fear it in law school. But I remember sitting in class one day in my first year, as my classmates were speaking, they were offering perspectives that I didn’t consider, and that made me better. It’s like how teammates with different talents helped make me better. I realized I needed them to make me better. You put in work to see incremental changes. In law, when you are trying to grasp a concept there’s always room for improvement, so it reminds me of hurdles.
I contrast the hurdles to life. You have obstacles you have to tackle and keep going. Track and field allowed me to stay sharp. I’m a high-energy person, so hurdles were a good way to express who I am. The relay allows you to work with a team for a common goal. That’s transferable to any place in life as teamwork.
On Competition
Moffitt: Law school is almost the antithesis of playing a team sport. There’s a lot of competitiveness in any forced ranking system that mitigates against being a team player. Because it is a forced-ranked competitive environment, many don’t know how to handle the competition. The one thing that helped me in law school was that I was a competitive athlete, and I knew how to handle one-on-one competition.
You would watch people melt down in ways that were modestly embarrassing like a teacher giving you a facial in class because you said something stupid, and I would just laugh. I had this great professor that I was terrified of but learned a lot from in my first year property Professor Laura Lape. She terrified everybody. She was so tough in the Socratic dialog that if you said something ridiculous, she would pause, and you knew it would be five minutes of torture. She is a genuinely nice person but takes her job seriously and the level of intellectual rigor you needed to bring to that class was probably the most I had to bring to any class. I’ve been yelled at by coaches, had things thrown at me, and been verbally humiliated… the level of mental toughness coming out of a professional sport, knowing what it is like to spend three days on a bus you are sleeping on, play three games in three days and have your “A-game,” prepares you for law school.
Moore: A trial is just like a game. You use individual skills, work ethic, and preparation. What great athletes and trial lawyers learn to do is overcome the fear and anxiety of competition. So many people never get over the fear of public speaking much less speaking in front of a jury. One of the things about being a trial lawyer is that it is the opposing counsel’s job to make you look bad. You are in that arena every day. You, and everyone on the team, must prepare enough so that your case comes through to the jury. Whether it’s the National Championship game or in a trial, you need to prepare and execute so you deserve victory. One of the things that gravitated me to this job is I can continue to compete and get the thrill I did with Syracuse winning national championships.
On Leadership
Moffit: When you are a leader on a sports team, you need to lead from the front, make the sacrifices and be the one willing to give up the most. By doing that, others will emulate the behavior, and if you have a good team they will do even more. It’s something I learned from sports and it’s something I do to this day.
I recently read a quote from Napoleon: “leaders transact in hope.” And that’s the difference between leadership and management. Managers will tell you what to do, how to do it, and when to get it done. Leaders create a vision and communicate it to internal and external stakeholders. They don’t tell you how to get there, they lead you there. If you go off the track, they’ll go back and bump you back on the track. Leaders never tell you how to do things. They give you a vision of what it will look like when it’s done and leave it to your creativity to get it done.
Moore: We had some great leaders. I can see why Gary Gait is so successful. He led by example. He never acted like he was the best player on the team. Same with Paul [Gait]. They were just always working on the game. They did not think of themselves as the best or most important players. They were very humble, nice, and respectful to everyone. When you are that good, sometimes those lead players can put themselves before the team – not the Gaits.
They acted like they were any other player. They valued and appreciated everyone on the team; the walk-ons, the trainers, the backups, they made everyone feel just as important as they were. That’s not easy to do at that age, getting all that attention and having all the success they did. But they demonstrated leadership by example, working hard to get the most out of themselves and supporting everyone around them to get the most out of the team.
Thevenin: The best way to lead in sports is by how you carry yourself, through example and learning as a servant leader. I learned in law school, it doesn’t have to be just one way. Leadership plays into how you affect changes.
The Final Word
What are the ties that bind athletes and lawyers? The competitive spirit, strategic and tactical thinking, the willingness to sacrifice for the team and the greater good, the ability to perform under pressure, the desire to excel, and the determination to stay fit (physically, mentally, and emotionally). Moore sums it up: Successful athletes can be good at anything if they learn how to transfer their work ethic and leadership on the field into their work ethic and leadership off the field. Some get it and some don’t. If you can transfer what you learn from sports into being a lawyer, you will be successful.
