Why I’m thankful for KU Law (but also thankful I’m almost done)

As I finish up my final semester at KU Law, I find that Thanksgiving is the perfect time to reflect on my 2.5 years here and think about what I am thankful for.

I’m thankful for all the lessons, and I’m not talking about the classes. I’m talking about learning the hard way to make studying important, but not the most important. I’m talking about learning that sleep is every bit as crucial as preparing for a presentation. I’m talking about learning how to read and really absorb the information. I’m talking about learning to live in the present and enjoy every second.

I’m thankful for the people I’ve met and the relationships that I have developed. My best friend and maid of honor. Mentors that I will feel comfortable calling for advice for years to come. Friends and peers that I know I can rely on throughout my career. Role models who give me plenty to aspire toward.

Samantha Wagner, left, and Alex Pierce, L’18.

I’m thankful for the experience. I have experienced what it is like to be in a variety of areas of law. I have experienced an amazing graduate program. I have experienced success, support and encouragement. I have the experience to recover quickly and gracefully from failure and loss. I have the experience to discuss difficult topics with people from every walk of life, regardless of our different views or stances.

I’m thankful for the strong foundation that KU Law has provided me with. I feel prepared to take the next steps as December rolls around and I get ready to leave. I’m thankful that I have people in my corner, but that I also have the knowledge and technical skill to make my own way. I’m thankful that “I’m at KU Law” opens doors and starts pleasant conversations.

And as sad as my last day will be, I’m thankful that it is almost over! I am ready to start the next chapter. I am thankful that I’m wrapping up my last papers, preparing for my last exam and giving my last student presentations, all in the next couple of weeks. I’m thankful that I won’t be counting on those student loans to keep me afloat for six months at a time. I’m thankful that I won’t feel the same level of guilt as I binge-watch Netflix on the weekends. I’m thankful that I won’t be the stereotypical stressed-out law student any more (although I may miss the excuse for my stress levels). I’m thankful that I made it through.

I’m thankful that my time at KU Law is coming to a close, but I know I will cry as I leave Green Hall for the last time because I am even more thankful for my time here.

— Samantha Wagner is a 3L from Paola and a KU Law Student Ambassador.

Finding a new ‘team’

In the months leading up to orientation for KU Law, I often felt nervous about the difficulties I knew I would face in my 1L year. Among these were being cold called in class, not understanding the material as quickly or efficiently as my classmates (or worse, not understanding the material at all), and of course, the massive impending stress of final exams. Yet, I also had other smaller, (perhaps sillier) fears, including having to start over with an entirely new group of people and the seemingly daunting task of making new friends.

Sydney Buckley, third from left on the bottom row, played volleyball for Fairfield University. Buckley and her college volleyball team won their third consecutive conference championship in 2017.

For me, this fear felt magnified by the fact that as a lifetime volleyball player, I’ve always had built-in, automatic friendships in my teammates. From middle school through college, I had literally always had a core group of 10-15 girls who had my back, understood the demands of being a student-athlete, and who I spent the majority of my time with. Among the many challenges of coming back home to the Midwest and beginning law school was the nagging thought that for the first time in my life, I was no longer going to be a part of a team. Gone were the days where I would spend dozens of hours a week at daily practices, weight room sessions, team dinners, and weekend matches and road trips with the close group of girls who over the past four years inevitably became my very best friends. Realizing that law school would not provide me with this same comfort was intimidating, because I had never known anything else. While I have always considered myself an outgoing person, I found the horror stories of the harshly competitive and cutthroat environment in law school alarming. The thought of being on my own for the first time — without the ease and comfort of being a part of a team — added to the overall anxiousness I felt before beginning law school.

Sydney Buckley, fourth from left on bottom row, celebrates with her KU Law Bluebook Relays team.

Yet, now a couple of months into my first year, I can only laugh at myself as I look back at my early fears. I have found that many of the students at KU Law are among the friendliest, warmest, brightest and most genuine classmates I have ever had the pleasure of learning alongside of. I have yet to experience the aggressive or cutthroat atmosphere I had been so gravely warned about. Many of the people I sit next to in class every day have quickly become close friends, and I truly feel that the students here hold a lot of respect and understanding for one another.

I used to think that the conclusion of my final season of collegiate volleyball meant that my time of being a part of a team had come to a close. However, in the past few months, I’ve realized that that is untrue — rather, I’ve simply become a part of a new kind of team. Maybe this new “team” is a bit nontraditional (since we thankfully aren’t forced into daily group exercise); but, we are very much a team in the sense that we are all driven, focused and kind towards one another as we struggle with the seemingly endless demands on our time. Though many of my early expectations about law school have been met — I have been cold called in class, the course material is difficult and the stress of finals is beginning to creep in — fortunately, I’m lucky enough to have found some really wonderful new teammates to experience it all with.

— Sydney Buckley is a 1L from Kansas City, Missouri and a KU Law Student Ambassador.

From active duty to KU Law

Photo by Ashley Golledge.

Army veterans graduate from West Point together, end up at same law school 35 years later

Eric McMillin and John Schoen were both commissioned by the United States Military Academy — also known as West Point — as Army second lieutenants on May 26, 1982. Now, 35 years later, they are both second-year law students at the University of Kansas School of Law.

John Schoen graduated from West Point in 1982.

Though McMillin and Schoen graduated from West Point at the same time, they were in different regiments and did not meet for the first time until after they had both retired from the military. At West Point, Schoen concentrated his studies on managerial psychology and was a member of the 3rd Regiment. McMillin concentrated on military history and was a member of the 4th Regiment.

“We didn’t actually meet face-to-face until after we retired from the military,” McMillin said. “John’s been good to me. We go out to his cabin in Wyoming. We’ve done some adventures together. I’ve enjoyed that.”

Eric McMillin graduated from West Point in 1982. He is now a second-year law student at KU Law.

Schoen actively served in the U.S. Army for 28 years. Throughout his career, he served as an infantryman for 12 years, led the White House platoon under President Ronald Reagan, commanded the Army drill team, did foreign area officer work, taught physical education for four years at West Point, served as an Army logistician and concluded his military career by serving on the operational staff at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. After retiring, he taught as a civilian assistant professor for seven years at the Army Command General Staff College (CGSC) in Leavenworth.

Through his service, he was deployed or assigned to roles in seven foreign countries:  Afghanistan, Denmark, Egypt, Haiti, Iraq, Italy and West Berlin.

John Schoen commanded the Army drill team, while he was stationed in West Berlin in 1988.

“I got to do some really cool things in the Army that I wouldn’t trade for anything,” Schoen said. “It was a great experience.”

Schoen’s daughters have each followed in his footsteps by pursuing careers with the Army. His oldest daughter, Kacie, is a captain and a black hawk helicopter pilot. His middle daughter, Madison, is a lieutenant and combat engineer in Afghanistan. His youngest, Taryn, is a junior in the ROTC program at Wofford College and plans to serve in the Army after graduation.

John Schoen served in the U.S. Army for 28 years and is now a second-year law student at KU Law. His daughter Kacie, right, is a captain and a black hawk helicopter pilot. His daughter Madison is a lieutenant and combat engineer in Afghanistan.

“I think it’s a great start to adulthood for them,” Schoen said.

McMillin’s time in the Army started and ended similarly to Schoen’s, but his career was very different. McMillin was deployed to Germany during the Cold War, commanded a tank company, was assigned to the foreign area officer program, learned Hebrew at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, earned a master’s in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Chicago, advised Iraqi Ministry of Defense organizations in Iraq, served as a liaison officer in Israel, worked as an Army attaché in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories, and served in a cavalry unit. He retired from active duty to teach as a civilian assistant professor for 11 years at the CGSC.

Eric McMillin, center, is pictured during his time in the Army.

After rich and varied careers in the military, Schoen and McMillin both retired in 2017 and decided to go to law school at KU.

Schoen’s interest in the law was piqued after many interactions with the legal system throughout his time in the Army.

“I’ve always been interested in the law. I’m not in law school to build a career, although that may happen,” Schoen said. “I really am in law school to satisfy the curiosity of why we do what we do with the law.”

McMillin, similarly, gravitated toward pursuing a law degree after experiencing a lifelong fascination with the legal system.

Eric McMillin, now a second-year law student at KU Law, formerly served in the U.S. Army.

“The military gave me some opportunities to see places where there wasn’t much rule of law,” McMillin said. “I think that helped me to better value what we have here in America.”

Schoen’s favorite part about going back to school has been what he’s learned in the classroom.

“I’ve sat in many classes here and little light bulbs have gone up over my head,” Schoen said. “I’ve said, ‘Wow. That’s why our legal system is so screwed up.’ That’s been fun – the actual illuminating of things I’ve wondered about my whole life.”

John Schoen, front, is pictured in Eygpt in 1998.

Schoen, 58, and McMillin, 57, are not in a rush to figure out their post-law school plans. McMillin is interested in the idea of becoming a general practice lawyer in a small community setting, while Schoen is looking into working in the areas of estate planning, trusts and elder law.

“I am really undecided at this point. There are a lot of options,” McMillin said. “Because I’m retired from the military, I don’t have as great a financial need to find a well-paying job as soon as I graduate. The idea of being a general practice ‘country’ lawyer, or at least helping in a firm like that, seems appealing.”

Eric McMillin is pictured in his Army uniform on his wedding day.

McMillin is happy to have ended up in Kansas to continue his education.

“At my stage in life, my family was pretty firmly rooted in Leavenworth,” McMillin said. “I was attracted to KU because of its reputation, what I saw here and the strong connection between KU and the Army Command General Staff College. There is a great bond between Lawrence and Leavenworth.”

— By Ashley Golledge

Recruiting Jayhawk lawyers

When Ethan Brown touts the KU Law community, he speaks from experience

After graduating from the University of Kansas School of Law in 2017, Ethan Brown clerked for Chief Justice Lawton Nuss of the Kansas Supreme Court. Eighteen months later, he’s back in Green Hall – this time as KU Law’s Assistant Director for Recruiting. Brown hit the road right away to meet future Jayhawk lawyers. But he recently carved out time between trips to chat about his own path to law school, his favorite thing about Lawrence and why he’s excited to be KU Law’s newest recruiter.

Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
A: I went to undergrad at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota. My undergraduate degrees are biology and environmental science. I also had minors in chemistry and geography because I just really love science. I grew up mostly in Texas. We moved around a lot. My dad was in the Air Force. The joke with my small section in law school was that we couldn’t figure out where my domicile was because my parents sold our house and RV full-time, so that’s why I say mostly from Texas.

Q: Why did you decide to go to law school?
A: I thought I was going to be a veterinarian until I interned with a vet for a year and a half. After I decided that wasn’t the career path I wanted, I frantically started trying to figure out what I was going to do. I had a biology professor talk to me about the possibility of going to law school. Ultimately, after researching it, I decided I wanted to go to law school for the academic challenge more than anything. It had not been on my radar at all. The more I learned about how it was so different from other types of education, the more I realized I needed that.

Q: Why did you pick KU Law?
A: I applied to KU partly because I had no idea where I wanted to end up. I wasn’t particularly a Jayhawk fan when I first started looking for law schools, but I had heard of them. Everyone knows what a Jayhawk is. The more I started researching, I found that there is such a strong alumni base that is fanatic about their school. Jayhawks love other Jayhawks. I felt confident, especially with the alumni network, that I could make the connections to go wherever I wanted to go. Ironically, I ended up staying in Kansas.

Q: Catch me up on the past year of your life.
A: I clerked for Chief Justice Lawton Nuss of the Kansas Supreme Court. He was an incredible mentor. There are actually quite a few KU grads at the Kansas Supreme Court. I joked while I was there that I took the positon that was the closest thing to still being in law school. I was a research attorney. I did research and writing, the same way you do in law school but with a higher intensity. I turn in work, and it’s reviewed by seven Supreme Court justices.

Q: What is your role at KU Law, and what do you do in that role?
A: I’m Assistant Director for Recruiting. My main role is to travel to all of our different recruiting events and talk to students who are interested in both law school generally and more specifically KU Law. Luckily, I can share the perspective about what it’s like at KU Law. I also do some application review once students start applying, and I’m on the Admissions Committee and the Scholarship Committee.

Ethan Brown recruits future Jayhawk lawyers at the Texas A&M Law Fair in College Station, Texas on November 7, 2018.

Q: What aspect of your role are you looking forward to the most?
A: My goal, especially for the first year, is to try to figure out how I can contribute to the program that gave me so much while also still improving myself and Green Hall. I’m definitely looking forward to traveling and getting to meet and talk to people. I loved clerking. It was such a good experience. If I hadn’t been on a limited term, I could have seen myself staying there for a while. But I think it’s good that I was on a limited term because I definitely missed people. At the core of all of your cases are issues impacting specific people. But you don’t get face time, like you might at a firm. I missed that.

Q: What do you like most about KU Law?
A: This is pretty cliché, but it’s the community. That’s what drew me in. I had a lot of good options when I was deciding on law schools. I chose KU because of the tour that I had and the community that I could see immediately, both with the students and the professors. I think that’s something unique that we do. We maintain a competitive environment that prepares you for practice and for the nature of work in the legal field. It’s competitive, but it’s a healthy competition. You can always find support.

Q: What is your favorite thing to do in Lawrence?
A: I like all of the parks in Lawrence. My background is environmental science. I worked in state national parks as a naturalist up in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I love that there are so many hidden green spaces all around Lawrence, like the trails at Rock Chalk Park, the trail up by the Kansas River and the off-leash dog park. Lawrence is not what I expected Kansas to look like, and I’m very happy to be here.

Q: What book did you read last?
A: “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” by J. D. Vance. It’s a fantastic book. I highly recommend it.

Q: People would be surprised if they knew:
A: I’m ordained to do weddings. I performed the marriage of one of my law school classmates and his wife. My first official planned wedding was two of the interns I worked with in 2013 at a wildlife rehabilitation facility. They met there. I think they asked me because they thought lawyers could do it just by the nature of being lawyers. That’s judges. I got ordained online. I have two more weddings coming up within the next year, and I’m expecting a third. I enjoy doing it for fun.

Q: Before working at KU Law, did you have any unusual or interesting jobs?
A: That was actually an ongoing joke in my small section. I’ve had every job. I’ve worked since I was 16, as soon as I was old enough in Texas. I did a whole range of things. As a teenager, I worked in a coffee shop, a shipping store and Old Navy. During undergrad, I worked in a factory — 3M — in their tape department, worked in a hospital, interned at a veterinarian’s office, was a naturalist in Custer State Park in South Dakota and did wildlife rehabilitation.

— By Ashley Hocking

Alisha’s declassified law school survival guide

A few weeks ago, I was studying with a friend and we started discussing the essential items that make our law-school lives (somewhat) easier. She said she wished she had known what to buy before 1L year started, so I thought I would share my favorites.

  • Book stand: These are pretty affordable and most people I know order them from Amazon. It will definitely help your neck after hours of reading!
  • Erasable pens and erasable highlighters: These are great for note-taking, book-briefing and just about everything, especially if you use a color-coding system. They also make erasable markers, which I like to use in my planner.
  • Post-it tabs: These are especially useful to add reference tabs in your Bluebook, which you will use frequently.
  • Bluebook Online: Speaking of using your Bluebook, you can also purchase access to the online version. You can search for terms and rules in the online version fairly quickly.
  • Noise-cancelling headphones and earplugs: It’s much easier to study at school with foam earplugs, white noise or music. I stash earplugs everywhere to have on hand for days when I forget my headphones. Most professors will also allow the use of headphones and earplugs during finals.
  • Layers: The temperature in Green Hall varies considerably, so keep extra layers around. Last year, my locker-buddy brought a blanket for our locker and I used it all the time. It may sound extra, but now I keep a “study blanket” in my study carrel.
  • Locker: You will probably need to share one, so find a friend and sign up for a locker at the beginning of the semester. My locker-buddy and I didn’t use our locker for books. Instead, we kept K-cups, coffee mugs, snacks, layers, Tylenol, extra earplugs, notebooks and anything else that we needed for long days at Green Hall (including a blanket!).
  • Whiteboard: I don’t have a good place to hang one, but I know a lot of people who use a large whiteboard for studying. I use poster paper for the same effect because I like to make flowcharts for review.

You will be studying and reading a lot in law school, so you should also ask around and get advice from your fellow classmates.  Hopefully some of these suggestions will help!

— Alisha Peters is a 2L from McPherson and a KU Law Student Ambassador.

Alumni law clerk honors memory of former dean, federal judge

Former KU Law Dean James Logan in 1968

Former KU Law Dean James Logan in 1968.

Brad Manson reflects on experience in Judge Logan’s chambers

Jim Logan was confirmed by the United States Senate in mid-December 1977, and a few days later he interviewed to hire law clerks. I was lucky enough to be interviewed. Jim had testified a few days earlier before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During college I worked for the Judiciary Committee, and I talked first in the interview by asking then Judge Logan, “Did you enjoy your appearance before the Committee?” We made an immediate connection, in part because we shared a liberal political ideology, and in part because Jim loved to talk about himself. Being hired Judge Logan’s law clerk was like winning the lottery for an unemployed third year law student.

Brad Manson, L'78

Brad Manson, L’78

Circuit Court Judges are allowed to office wherever they wish, so Jim wanted to have his office in Olathe, Kansas, where he lived. The only federal building in Olathe was the Post Office. The government built an office for Jim and his staff in the basement of the Post Office. Before construction was completed, Judge Logan worked out of the visiting judge’s quarters in the old Federal Courthouse in Wyandotte County. We shared the law library with Judge O’Conner. Kathy Vratil (later to become U.S. District Judge Vratil) was Earl O’Connor’s law clerk. Our desks were in a space in the law library, and it was heaven. There weren’t any computers, no computer research, and we typed all draft opinions on IBM electric typewriters. Only Judge Logan had dictation equipment, there was one secretary, and she most certainly did not work for the law clerks.

Soon we moved into our basement quarters, and filled Judge Logan’s library with an entire set of the United States Code, all of the official Supreme Court reporters, all of the West regional reporters, and all of the statues of the states in the Tenth Circuit. And the two prominent weekly tax reporters, because Judge Logan continued to keep up his expertise in tax law. I physically unboxed, stamped “US Courts” and shelved every book. Jim clerked for Judge Walter Huxman in the Tenth Circuit after graduation from Harvard, and Judge Logan located Judge Huxman’s old desk from the General Services Administration, had it refinished and put a beautiful, new burnt orange leather top on the working space. He had a spare office, in an old post office basement, and the law clerks worked in the stacks without windows, but we had a nice conference room, with windows at the top, looking onto the street above. There is no better way to begin a legal career, and Jim Logan, forever the teacher, was a wonderful boss and mentor, a role he assumed from the first day on the job, and never stopped, up through dinner last December. Every day we learned something new. That was and is the nature of appellate court work. And Jim shared all of his thinking and reasoning on the cases with his clerks.

As a law clerk working for Jim Logan you were essentially an aid de camp, at least in the early days, before there were written manuals governing federal law clerks. You were expected to do anything he needed you to do, beyond legal research and writing. Jim and Bev made a gift of undeveloped land in Douglas County to the University of Kansas, and I was sent to make sure the survey was correct, the legal description in place, and the land unencumbered by encroachments. Judge Huxman had allowed his law clerks to engage in some pro bono legal work, so Judge Logan believed learning how to practice law was important. I represented the janitor in the post office, and did some other legal aid type pro bono work, even meeting with clients in our law library, until Judge Logan learned there was a law clerk manual being written prohibiting any outside work, so that ended my short pro bono legal career.

Jim’s best friend on the Court was Monroe McKay, from Salt Lake City, Utah. Judge McKay is 90, and was confirmed by the Senate the same day Jim was confirmed. But Judge McKay’s brother was a congressman from Utah, and he convinced President Carter to sign his brother’s appointment a day before Jim’s appointment–so Judge McKay always had seniority. They were very, very close. So close that then Chief Judge Seth, from New Mexico, wouldn’t allow them to sit on the same panel for many years. Judge McKay spoke at Jim’s memorial gathering, and I talked to him about their friendship, and experiences on the Court. Judge McKay captured Jim’s spirit in his remarks, and said he had never met anyone smarter, with a great legal mind, incisive and insightful, and a good heart and belief in the best of human nature.

Jim Logan was my first employer, a teacher for life, and a trusted friend. I loved him and will miss him.

— Brad Manson, L’78, is an attorney at Manson Karbank McClaflin in Overland Park.