When Reda Taleb (McLean Class, 2015) talks about “giving back,” she isn’t just reciting a slogan — she’s living by example. The daughter of immigrants from Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, Taleb’s parents, along with her six older siblings, laid roots in Dearborn’s south end, an area known for its pollution-emitting factory smoke stacks and community of Arab Americans seeking the “American Dream.”
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If you ask Mike Botke to describe exactly what Teen Court is all about, he tells you straight up. “The Teen Court Program really is about holding young people accountable and giving them a second chance in life,” explains Botke. “Because we all know what happens to people when you have a criminal record. We don’t want these young people to have a criminal record.”
Scott Beute thought he was driving down a straight road when he graduated in 1993 with a mechanical engineering degree and a lifelong love for cars. Yet something inside him started steering him in another direction. “I kept finding excuses for not going back to school,” laughed Scott. “I knew that I wanted to further my education and my career, but didn’t know what that would be. Going to law school had really never crossed my mind. But one day I was listening to a friend of mine’s wife, who was a paralegal, talking about how Cooley Law School had opened a campus in Grand Rapids. She was trying to convince her husband that he needed to go to law school. Well, the funny thing was that my friend never ended up going to law school, but I did.”
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If you are a golfer, then you know that summer is golf outing season. But for golfer and Cooley Law School graduate Vincent Welicka, it really means it’s time to join up with his fellow graduates and friends for his law school’s annual alumni golf outing – in fact, for him and his team, that’s every summer since it started 26 years ago.
Going to law school was a hard decision, but really, it was the right one for Tampa Bay area couple Bryan and Elizabeth Devolder. The easy part was recognizing and knowing that a legal career was something they both wanted to do. The hard part was making sure it could work for them; given that they both came from management positions, making good salaries, and working around family life and the day-to-day responsibilities that go along with it.
Traditionally, each court hosting an induction ceremony for new attorneys asks the individual performing highest on the Bar exam to speak. This spring, The Hon. Craig C. Villanti, chief judge of the Florida Second District Court of Appeal, invited Maryam Saleh, a recent Cooley Law School graduate and top Bar performer in the district, to speak on behalf of the attorneys being sworn in that day. The Second District covers 14 counties in five judicial circuits. There are five total District Courts of Appeal in Florida. We are proud and honored of Maryam and her accomplishments. Below is her speech from May 9, 2016, along with video excerpts about her journey in life, in law school, and what drives her going forward.
The first thing 13th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Christopher C. Sabella tells law students on the first day of class is that he wants them to be “as comfortable in the courtroom as they are in their own living room.” Now that doesn’t sound very easy, but he goes on to say that one of the best ways to become comfortable in the courtroom is by preparing. In fact, the three top things you need to remember in the courtroom are, “Preparation. Preparation. Preparation!”
Blog author, Constitutional Law expert and Cooley Professor Brendan Beery, clarifies a complicated concept in today’s political arena. Professor Beery, a summa cum laude graduate of the law school, teaches Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure at Cooley Law School, and is a frequent legal expert in the media.
Less than six months ago, Bryan and Elizabeth Devolder opened their own business, The Devolder Law Firm, in suburban Tampa. In the words of Elizabeth Devolder, “We are very pleased. It’s been doing even better than we expected. We just had our third profitable week!” The fact that Elizabeth and Bryan Devolder have been able to create a successful law business right out of the gate is of no surprise to anyone else, especially Cooley’s Tampa Bay campus. As students, both Bryan and Elizabeth were committed, exceptional law students. As attorneys, they are equally involved and dedicated to their new venture.
