Today in the Law School Insider we explore the journey that Catherine Groll, alumna of Cooley Law School as well as attorney with the Mike Morse Law Firm went on to find the success she has in her own legal career.
To give everyone some context, Catherine Groll has practiced as a litigator for 22 years, and spent 12 years as an Adjunct Professor at Cooley Law School where she won the Fred Griffiths award in 2010 for teaching excellence. Ms. Groll’s teaching activities recently took her to Cambodia, where she taught the first Tort Law class at the Royal University of Law and Economics as a visiting professor, and was honored to be approved by the Deputy Prime Minister to teach evidence law and critical thinking to new judges. Ms. Groll was awarded the Camille S. Abood Distinguished Volunteer Award in recognition of her volunteer efforts, which include two Global Habitat for Humanity builds and a three week volunteer program in New Delhi, India at the Mother Teresa Home for the Mentally Ill.
Catherine is an expert in Michigan’s no Fault Act and brings that expertise to auto accident victims every day, providing them outstanding legal representation that the Mike Morse Law Firm is known for.
In asking Catherine Groll about why she is a lawyer, she stated that it stemmed from the death of her own father and the injustice that she and her family went through after a medical malpractice incident occurred. As she got older, while she was not the model child, she stated she rebelled a lot, she worked fir an immigration lawyer and saw that law could be used to effect change.
She chose to attend Cooley Law School by chance, but she does not regret that decision. She stated that Cooley Law School was a perfect fit because it offered her an evening program. On top of this, she also loved that Cooley was a trend-setter and more accessible than other law schools. Being a part of a law school that "bucked the system" was something that even today she has pride about. You see, Catherine Groll says that you will understand a lot about the law school through understanding the "heart" of the law school. What does this mean? It means asking questions about both who is teaching you but also where is the heart of the people that are teaching you?
As she was going through law school, she found that she had to work hard, but she also had to balance work and school. You see in her second year in law school she was offered a job working for a law firm and she continued working there throughout her law school career.
This early experience working for a law firm allowed her to start building her network early. She quickly learned that she needed to work on the following to find the ultimate success she was looking for:
- Social poise
- Etiquette
- Proper graces
- Good conversation skills
While Catherine Groll felt that she might not have had these before she started in the law firm, she was able to work on this to grow and learn and hone these skills even further to help her in her own future career.
Now that she has been working in the legal profession for over 20 years she has found that even though going into the profession she thought at first that it was the money that drew her in. Now, she stated that even though she has made the large amounts of money that she had always dreamed of, today it is no longer what she uses to measure her ultimate success. Instead, today she always asks herself about what is feeding her own passion to make her get up every day. Catherine Groll mentioned that she hopes that the answer to this question will always be to find enjoyment in the job, the case and the client and that she is able to bring a fresh approach to each case and each client. I loved the comment that Catherine Groll provided us that "Money is great, but it does not fill your heart." Remember this statement as you are preparing for your future career as a lawyer.
Catherine Groll is also known as a Rocker and a very good public speaker so I asked her about tips she would share with all of you to help you be stronger in your own public speaking. She suggested that you do one or more of the following:
- Join Toastmasters
- Get involved in a theater group
- Sing Karaoke
- Go Dancing
The idea here is that you have to make yourself get out there and take a chance and prepare yourself to be able to convey something to others.
Catherine Groll's ah-ha moment came after law school in one of her early medical malpractice suite cases. It was a vasectomy case and while it was uncomfortable for her to have to talk about male genitalia to a jury, she found that on the day of the trial looking at her client and his wife that she had to complete;y throw out everything that she was going to say. Catherine Groll stated that the moment she saw her client she knew she had to tell the truth about what the client had gone through. This was the moment she truly felt like a lawyer. She mentioned that she knew this because in her talk to the jury there was "nothing in there about me, it was all about the client" and in the end, this is what she tries to provide for all of her clients.
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Are you a practicing lawyer? A law student? Would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the Law School Insider? Send me an email at lawschoolinsider@cooley.edu