Spring 2008 Contents

Optimism, Opportunities, and Open Doors: John Stanoch ’85 The president of Qwest’s Minnesota operations has an open-door policy: when he sees one, he walks through. It’s led him from a judge’s chamber to the state Capitol to a Fortune 500 company.

Dedicated to Public Service: Carol Washington 1L A natural advocate, this Mitchell student has already gained considerable experience in policy and government.

Wanted: First-Year Associate with Experience Several new innovative programs are giving Mitchell students an edge when they start working and firm recruiters what they’re looking for when hiring.

Two Supreme Court Chief Justices Support a Working Student Nick Mazzocco, a part-time Mitchell 1L student and full-time construction project manager, is the first recipient of the Magnuson Amdahl Working Student Scholarship.

Finding Your Balance With work and life seamlessly integrated—thanks largely to technology—everyone’s happy, right? Apparently not. The word “balance” is making a comeback. This time around, men are joining the discussion, and the conversation is about more than child care.

The Future of Food Professor Donna Byrne is preparing her students to tackle food law’s new frontier.

Working Where She’s Needed: Jessie Nicholson ’85 Jessie Nicholson ’85 has devoted a legal career to representing low-income people.

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Departments

• News PDF, 625 Kb
• Gratitude PDF, 422 Kb
• Class Notes/In Memoriam PDF, 1890 Kb
• To the Point—Thoughts from Dean Janus PDF, 269 Kb

©2008 William Mitchell College of Law

Spring 2008

Optimism, Opportunities, and Open Doors: John Stanoch ’85

John Stanoch ’85 has an open-door policy: when he sees one, he walks through. It’s led him from a judge’s chamber to the State Capitol to a presidential post at a Fortune 500 company.
By Erin Peterson

From his 21st floor office at Qwest, John Stanoch ’85 has a spectacular view of downtown Minneapolis, but on many warm summer afternoons, he prefers to be a few blocks east in the confines of the Metrodome, where the downtown view is replaced by an off-white fiberglass dome. Every year, he splits season tickets with a couple of buddies so he can watch the Minnesota Twins in action.

Stanoch vacations in Fort Myers, Fla., to watch the squad in spring training, and every year he and his son travel around the country to watch games in venues like Yankee Stadium, Wrigley Field, and Fenway Park.

Dedicated to Public Service: Carol Washington 1L

A natural advocate, Washington has already gained experience in policy and government
By Lisa Harden

Carol Washington started advocating for smoking cessation before she had even mastered the language. As a kindergartner, she unabashedly put out relatives’ cigarettes. Today, as a first-year Mitchell student, she works as a research assistant for the Tobacco Law Center at William Mitchell. The 30-year-old has spent more than six years working for tobacco control and smoking policy organizations, serving as the first director of the Minnesota African American Tobacco Education Network.

“I am a natural-born advocate,” Washington says. “I want to inspire people and effectively impact their lives in a positive way.”

Two Supreme Court Chief Justices Support a Working Student

Scholarships Change Lives
Nick Mazzocco 1L
by Lisa Harden

No one understands how difficult it is to balance law school, a full-time job, and a family better than newly appointed Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson ’76. He knows a little support, both moral and financial, can go a long way.

“I went to Mitchell because I needed to work my way through school,” Magnuson says. “I was lucky enough to get a job working for one of the best role models available, someone who also had worked full time to get through school—former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Douglas Amdahl ’51. He gave me the inspiration to handle a job and school at the same time and the opportunity.”

Continuing that legacy of helping others and in honor of his mentor, Magnuson created a scholarship for a student who works full time and has dependent children.

Wanted: First-Year Associate with Experience

William Mitchell is giving its graduates and law firm recruiters a head start

By Erin Peterson

Ray Faricy ’99, a partner at Lindquist & Vennum, loves working with third-year law students. He finds them bright, motivated, engaged, and earnest. But the second they toss their mortarboards, he knows that they’re something of a gamble. “In private practice, associates generally lose money for at least the first couple years with all the time the firm invests in them to get them up to speed,” he says.

That idea isn’t heresy; it’s common knowledge. A 2003 study found that law firms don’t generally start recouping their investments in young lawyers until their fourth year at a firm.

William Mitchell has long recognized the need for law students to receive both theoretical learning and practical legal skills training so they can be more effective as beginning lawyers. A leader in offering experiential opportunities to its students, William Mitchell was a pioneer in clinics, legal practicum, trial advocacy, and legal writing. But during the past few years, the school’s administrators and faculty have made an even more concerted effort to integrate skills with the rest of the curriculum.

Finding Your Balance

As the boundaries between work and home become blurred, can lawyers—both women and men—find balance in the workplace alongside pursuing a career, raising children, and, increasingly, caring for elderly parents?
By Amy Lindgren

Remember work-life balance? For attorneys working in private practice, the notion has always been somewhat utopian, but here is a refresher: work-life balance is the concept that one’s work and personal life can be managed in such a way as to make a fulfilling, happy whole. It was a hot topic in the ’80s and ’90s, driven largely by women who were tired of trying to do everything. Instead of being superwomen, they reasoned, they would approach the situation more like a buffet, taking a little of each thing until they had a tasty, balanced meal on their plates. But often, too much of everything cascaded onto the plate unbidden, spilling over in a messy heap.

Now, thanks largely to technology, we hear less about work-life balance and more about work-life integration. The evolution from balance to integration turns the buffet into a stew. BlackBerrys, email, wireless, cell phones, laptops, video conferences … such innovations mean that one can work from home while cooking dinner or even while pacing the sidelines at a Little League game. Conversely, the well-integrated employee can tend to personal tasks at work. Waiting for a client meeting to start? Why not order the week’s groceries or schedule a haircut? It’s all possible with the flick of a wrist and an Internet connection.

The Future of Food

Professor Donna Byrne is preparing her students to tackle food law’s new frontier.
by Meleah Maynard

If you think you think eating seems a lot more complicated than it used to be, you are not alone. Even a quick grocery run can bring on a rush of mind-boggling questions. What’s better: wild-caught salmon or farm-raised? If the frozen corn is not labeled as “non-GMO,” does that mean it has been genetically modified? What’s bovine growth hormone, and why do some milk labels specifically say it has come from cows that were not treated with it?

Issues like these not only have consumers thinking, they have piqued the interest of the legal community as well. Until recently, food and drug courses have been taught in combination, with the emphasis being on drugs. Now food law is becoming an area of its own, attracting the attention of legal professionals like William Mitchell College of Law Professor Donna Byrne. Byrne has been teaching tax law at Mitchell for more than a decade. But her growing interest in legal issues related to food motivated her this year to introduce a new Food Law and Policy seminar.