“When recruiting lawyers, I look for people who bring an entrepreneurial approach to the practice of law….” – Mark Smolik ‘87
This past week, Mark Smolik '87, one of our most distinguished alumni, spoke at C|M|Law. Mark is the Vice President, General Counsel, and Chief Compliance Officer for
DHL Supply Chain Americas and Chairman and Founder of QualMet, an innovative legal technology company that uses performance metrics and benchmarking to raise the legal quality and business value between in-house and outside legal counsel. Mark spoke about the business of law, the changing dynamics of the legal profession, and what that means for our law students and recent graduates.
We’ve had many great speakers over the past year, but Mark’s three talks were the best I’ve heard since I’ve served as Interim Dean because they resonated so deeply with everyone – our students, faculty, and staff. I have never seen so many of our students transfixed and inspired during a talk as when Mark spoke about the importance of embracing change, building your value proposition, creating opportunity, working hard, and being honest, humble, prepared, bold, decisive, and team-oriented. For each of these values that Mark looks for in a lawyer, he had a corresponding story.
Shortly after his first talk, one of our students approached Mark and said, “I’d like to take you to lunch.” Mark noted that this was the first time in his 30 years of talking to law students and mentoring countless law students and lawyers, that a student was bold enough to do that. Despite his very busy global schedule, I know that he will go to lunch with that student.
When Mark started at DHL, he directly supervised a team of 5. Today, he leads a team of 58, and it’s growing. Mark emphasized the need for running a corporate legal department like a business, using the “OGSM” methodology - Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Measures. In a recent article entitled "Embracing Change", Mark wrote, “knowing that change and process improvement starts with metrics is not enough. Metrics need to remain consistent and objective in order to sustainably track progress.” I believe that those same principles apply to the leadership of our law school as we face the continued challenge of national declining enrollment, increased need for financial scholarship support for our students, and the critical need for advancing student success.
Although he was admitted to C|M|Law, Mark was convinced he shouldn’t be here because of his undergraduate GPA and LSAT score. But Mark had a defining moment when he received the high grade in Professor Hyman Cohen’s (former Interim Dean,1975-77) torts class. It gave him the confidence that he could succeed, and he never looked back.
Unlike many who are pessimistic about the prospects for employment for our graduates, Mark is encouraging and optimistic, stating that this isthe “most opportune time” to graduate from law school. He noted that the baby boom generation of lawyers is large, but many are beginning to retire. The incoming generation of lawyers, on the other hand, is relatively small because of national declining law school enrollment over the past 10 years, which means that future law school graduates will have increased opportunities.
He was very high on our C|M|Law students and graduates. Mark looks for law graduates who have collaborative and entrepreneurial skills, and interesting life experiences. He remarked that he is more likely to hire a C|M|Law graduate than a graduate of a more elite law school, because our graduates demonstrate Midwestern values of hard work and follow through and possess practical life experiences that are extremely valuable. Mark made a generous commitment to hire a summer legal intern from C|M|Law this summer. (If you are interested in applying, please contactHeather DiFranco or Sarah Beznoska in our Career Planning Office).
Speaking of our extraordinary students, we had still another impressive success this past weekend. C|M|Law students Melissa Bilancini, Ben Fuchs, and Alanna Guy won the Gabrielli National Family Law Moot Court Competition at Albany Law School! Besting 22 teams from across the country, they earned the prize for Best Brief, and then competed in round after round, all the way through to the finals, where they argued before a 5-judge panel of New York state and federal court judges and won! In the preliminary rounds, Melissa Bilancini also earned third-best oralist award.
As Professor Carolyn Broering-Jacobs, our C|M|Law Moot Court Team coach, noted, “This is a tremendous accomplishment by any team, but it's particularly special because this was the team's first competition. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the team’s success -- the faculty members and alumni who judged practice rounds, the first-year legal writing professors who prepared them so well, their appellate brief writing professors who taught them about writing appellate briefs, Collette Emerson, who assists the Moot Court Team in countless ways, and many others. “
Have a great week.
Thanks.
Lee