Student Limelights

Kate Dewan was all business – literally and figuratively – when it came to choosing law as a career and the law school that would launch it. The 3L at St. Mary’s University School of Law in Texas had geared herself over the years for the jobs in marketing she thought she would enjoy and at which she knew she’d do well. And the jobs did come; the enjoyment did not. “I wasn’t using all my brainpower; I didn’t have to challenge myself,” Dewan said in a telephone interview. “I needed something more.”

Joseph Rosati, a 3L at Albany Law School, was both smart and lucky when it came to earning a J.D. degree. He was smart in understanding the importance of size, location, cost of attendance and availability of scholarships. He was lucky in choosing a law school whose professors are top-notch teachers and recognized authorities in their fields, and whose classes emphasize practical skills.

Alanna McGovern, a 3L at the Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, is among that rare breed of people who have wanted to be lawyers for as long as they can remember. So long that her family members – truck drivers, medical technologists, nurses, police officers but no lawyers – initially dismissed it as the babbling of a 4-year-old. That’s right, 4-year-old.

James Anthony Wolff, a 3L in New York Law School’s evening division, long ago confessed to being a passionate composer and musician, a tech geek and a serial entrepreneur; a 3D and space technologies entrepreneur to be exact. All of it, he says, explains why the Center for Business and Financial Law and the “feel of the place” made NYLS the right choice for him.

Advocating for disadvantaged communities is a passion for Lola Sophia Bovell, a 3L and 2014 Ms. JD Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School. But why she chose UW had a lot to do with its national reputation, choice of clinics, financial aid and a relationship with the school forged at a “Law Day” forum years before the Florida native even applied.

Jared Brenner went to law school so that he could learn to protect musicians and other creative artists in ways they didn’t – or couldn’t – themselves. What he found at Brooklyn Law School was a new community of creators — tech-startup entrepreneurs — who he hopes will one day be his clients and collaborators.

STUDENT: Kristy Brumfield LAW SCHOOL: Loyola University New Orleans College…

Student: Sarah Marie Draper Law School: SUNY Buffalo Law School…