Law & Public Policy

Deneisa Wharton

lamontagne — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 15:23:52 +0000

Deneisa Wharton lamontagne Tue, 03/26/2019 - 11:23

Career Field

Law & Public Policy

Paralegal

Year of Graduation

2017

Gordon & Silber, P .C.

The classes that I took and the discussions held in and outside of class expanded my critical thinking ability drastically, and enabled me to understand the fundamentals of writing an arguing from a much clearer perspective. Although I remember feeling frustrated at times, all of the feedback and suggestions from my professors ultimately helped me to see things from a logical standpoint. I work at a law firm now, and when I review or draft documents I'm able to see some flaws in basic reasoning that others miss.

Robert Mayville

lamontagne — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:43:16 +0000

Robert Mayville lamontagne Wed, 03/20/2019 - 15:43

Career Field

Law & Public Policy

Attorney

Year of Graduation

2012

Law Offices of Gavin M. Hughes

“The critical thinking skills I developed as part of my Philosophy Major have been routinely useful in the practice of law.”

Rob Garafola

lamontagne — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 19:34:48 +0000

Rob Garafola lamontagne Mon, 03/18/2019 - 15:34

Career Field

Law & Public Policy

Associate

Year of Graduation

2008

Frogomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy LLC

“Studying philosophy taught me how to think critically, issue spot, analyze and resolve problems, and write succinctly. My favorite memory is taking Logic with Professor Edgar. She's an excellent and unforgettable professor. I developed a natural curiosity in philosophy during the course and I decided to major in philosophy because of Professor Edgar.”

John Petrella

lamontagne — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 16:10:49 +0000

John Petrella lamontagne Fri, 03/15/2019 - 12:10

Career Field

Law & Public Policy

Attorney

Year of Graduation

1985

Genova Burns, LLC

“Law School and the practice of Law demands critical thinking and the successful completion of logic games. These skills I learned first at Geneseo while studying political theory in both the Political Science and Philosophy Departments and symbolic logic in Philosophy.”

Jennifer Estleford

jc78 — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 16:01:26 +0000

Jennifer Estleford jc78 Thu, 08/30/2018 - 12:01

Career Field

Law & Public Policy

Attorney

Year of Graduation

2010

I have known since a young age that I wanted to be a lawyer, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to major in for undergraduate school. When I was in high school someone told me the best thing to major in before law school is something you are good at and enjoy; this turned out to be the best advice! I had always enjoyed reading, but one of my English teachers senior year of high school made me remember how much I loved literature by allowing us to choose many of the novels we read. Thanks to her, I chose English literature as a major. (Sidenote: Mrs. Day may have created a monster, because I am constantly reading while I long for the days I was an English literature major — when books were constantly thrown at me!)

After I left Geneseo, I spent three years at SUNY Buffalo Law School. In May 2013 I graduated with a J.D. and a criminal concentration. I now live in Charlotte, North Carolina where I sat for the July 2013 bar exam and passed!

Being an English major allowed me to pursue a passion but also has helped me in my career. Writing and analysis are important in law school and in work as an attorney; grammar and brevity are highly valued in the legal field. The most important thing I learned as an English major was to manage my time.

My advice to current English majors is to make connections and enjoy being an English major!

Julie Nociolo

jc78 — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 16:59:05 +0000

Julie Nociolo jc78 Wed, 08/29/2018 - 12:59

Career Field

Law & Public Policy

Law Clerk

Year of Graduation

2009

NYS Court of Appeals, Central Legal Staff

I graduated from �� in 2009 with a degree in English Literature, a minor in Philosophy, and as a member of the Edgar Fellows Honors Program. My goal was to attend law school and I thought that an English degree would be the best training knowing that I would need to read critically and quickly as a law student. And I was right. My English major helped me develop writing skills that I later refined in law school. Constantly writing at Geneseo definitely gave me a leg up to other law students.

But majoring in English was so much more rewarding than merely training for law school. I developed a hunger for genres I never learned in my high school English classes. I explored Irish and British literature and poetry with Professor Doggett. I learned about the intersection of natural disasters (like Hurricane Katrina) and African American literature with Professor McCoy. I discussed the early works from Western Humanities with Professor Herzman. I also wrote my senior capstone thesis with Dr. Doggett as my advisor. I most appreciated how close the English Department was and how it fostered faculty and student relationships. This greatly helped me while pursuing internships, jobs, and eventually law school.

After graduating, I moved to New York City to work as a litigation paralegal at a large law firm. I wanted to understand what a lawyer did before I spent nearly a hundred thousand dollars on a degree. It was a challenging but rewarding experience and I was still persuaded to pursue law school.

I am currently a 3L at New York Law School in Manhattan and will be graduating this May. My advice about selecting a law school is that unless you get into Yale, Harvard, or NYU go to the school that gives you the most merit aid. The legal job market is not very friendly right now.

This coming summer I will serve as a Law Clerk at New York State’s highest court (the Court of Appeals) in Albany. I will be reviewing all civil motions for leave to appeal (the state equivalent of petitions for certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court) and drafting recommendations about whether the Judges should hear the particular case. After the clerkship, I hope to work on employment law and civil rights issues in the public sector.

I would be happy to speak with any Geneseo English major who is interested in pursuing law school.

Benjamin Allee

jc78 — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 16:57:14 +0000

Benjamin Allee jc78 Wed, 08/29/2018 - 12:57

Career Field

Law & Public Policy

Assistant United States Attorney

Year of Graduation

1999

U.S. Attorney’s Office

I graduated from Geneseo in ’99 with dual majors in English and Philosophy. When I found out there was no English factory to go work in, I decided to go to law school, with the hope that I might work as a prosecutor or in some other rare job where I could be intellectually challenged and productive and useful to the community all at once. I graduated from Fordham Law in ’03. After law school I worked in two judicial clerkships for federal judges in Manhattan, assisting them with legal research and drafting opinions. I also worked as an associate at a law firm in Manhattan on various litigations and other matters. Then in 2008 I was hired by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where I still work today as an Assistant United States Attorney. I handle federal prosecutions involving public corruption, violent crime, fraud, and other crimes. The work includes, among other things, conducting investigations, bringing charges, and advocacy in motion practice, trials, and appeals. It’s a terrific job and something I’ve been very lucky and privileged to have the opportunity to do.

Although I never planned it – I chose classes at Geneseo based on what seemed the most interesting – it turned out that my English and Philosophy studies at Geneseo were incidentally the best possible preparation for law school. To excel in law school requires, among other things, reading difficult material, understanding it, and then organizing your thoughts into clear writing, and even better yet writing with narrative and writing that demonstrates mastery. The final products of that process are written exam answers. The English courses I took were great preparation for this, especially the creative writing workshops (with Prof. Rachel Hall).

In the workshops, we worked so hard to improve as writers. We subjected our best earnest efforts to the critiques of the group, and we read carefully the writing of others with an eye for thoughtfully critiquing it. There’s no other type of college study I know of that can so dramatically improve a person’s ability to communicate, to write (or say) something – anything, whether it be a poem or story or essay or legal brief or directions to the grocery store – that will actually connect with the audience (maybe even deeply). Ultimately in any writing I think the idea is to make choices in order to put on the page what’s important and to leave off the page what’s unimportant, so that the reader is with you, they’re moved or entertained or enlightened or persuaded or arrived-at-the-store or whatever the point was. It’s very difficult to make those choices. It’s hard to get across what you really mean. It requires talent and practice and often a good editor. The workshops constantly focus you on how best to make those choices, and they teach you all kinds of ways to be savvy about it (and though they’re hard work they’re also great fun). I’ve found that those skills translate to lots of things beyond creative writing, including in law school, not to mention in litigation including trial advocacy.

I’ve sometimes been in the position of interviewing lawyers for certain jobs, and I view an English degree as a significant positive. It tells me that the candidate likely has a sincere interest in learning, that he/she is a practiced writer, and that he/she is more likely to be able to carefully and thoughtfully identify and size up relevant issues, and therefore be a better, more dedicated and persuasive advocate.

My advice to current students?: Soak it up! And not just beers at the Idle Hour! Write, write, write. Get and be responsive to feedback on your writing. If you think you cannot improve as a writer you’re wrong. Write for The Lamron. Tutor writing at the Writing Learning Center. Write a thesis. And by all means take as many creative writing classes as you can. You’ll enjoy it now and you’ll be better off for it later.

Sarah Brancatella

jc78 — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 16:28:01 +0000

Sarah Brancatella jc78 Wed, 08/29/2018 - 12:28

Career Field

Law & Public Policy

Attorney

Year of Graduation

2004

I didn’t start at Geneseo planning to be an English major or a lawyer. In fact, I planned on being an orthodontist. But I liked reading, writing and analyzing. Scratch that, I loved it. So I took English course after English course, did well and was happy. Dreams of orthodontia slipped away, and on the last day you were required to declare a major I boldly claimed English as my own. I had no plan, and I was okay with that. I was too busy enjoying myself crafting arguments about the portrayal of spinster women in American Romantic literature.

As it turns out, the critical analysis skills I learned and refined as an English major are exactly the same skills I used in law school and as an attorney. In a lot of ways, being a lawyer is exactly like being an English major — you read a text, interpret it, and argue in support of your interpretation. Also, research and writing are two of the most coveted talents in the legal profession, and as an English major you learn how to do both extremely well. The ability to research, write and analyze well make you highly employable as an attorney and, in fact, in the middle of the recession when job prospects were the worst they had ever been for attorneys, I was offered a job right out of law school as an appellate clerk, a (dare I say prestigious) position where I analyzed, researched and wrote on legal issues to help a panel of judges reach decisions on matters before the court.

After being in private practice for a bit, I currently do “nontraditional” legal work and am with an organization that educates and assists town officials on municipal law and lobbies on behalf of local government at the state level. I absolutely love it and, without a doubt, the tools that I learned as an English major have helped me in my legal career and are skills that I use every day.

Danielle Sicari

jc78 — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 16:07:21 +0000

Danielle Sicari jc78 Wed, 08/29/2018 - 12:07

Career Field

Law & Public Policy

Attorney

Year of Graduation

1996

I graduated from St. John's University School of Law in 2000, and since then, I have worked with various offices across Long Island.

My experiences writing and editing — and even interviewing — while at Geneseo have helped me in my practice, which focuses heavily on writing. My advice would be to take different opportunities to develop the skills you'll need. I worked for the administration and student newspapers, as well as the radio station. And stay in touch after graduation — school loyalty runs deep in the world of job hunting.