Members of the School of Law’s 21-member board brought professional insights to the downtown Greensboro campus during its fall meeting, spending time mentoring students through panel discussions and conversations over two days of fellowship.
For Elon Law students, some of the most valuable advice from accomplished attorneys during this week’s Advisory Board meeting was also among the simplest: take law school seriously as the beginning of your career, stay open to unexpected opportunities and start building professional relationships now.
Members of the ¸£ÀûÑÇÖÞ¹ú²ú¾«Æ· School of Law Advisory Board gathered in Greensboro this week for their regular fall meeting, providing strategic guidance and professional insights to university and law school administrators while devoting significant time to students through panel discussions and small-group mentoring conversations shared over meals.
The 21-member board includes prominent attorneys, judges and business leaders from across the country who advise Elon Law and ¸£ÀûÑÇÖÞ¹ú²ú¾«Æ· leaders on the law school’s development and strategic direction.
A Wednesday, Sept. 16, panel featured Jennifer Bowden L’09, principal at R. Steve Bowden & Associates; Marla Crawford, general counsel at Cimplifi; and Gerald Walden G’14, general counsel at The Fresh Market. Student Bar Association President Trey McClenny L’26 moderated.
Their conversation offered students practical advice drawn from careers spanning private practice, corporate law, litigation and emerging legal technology. Among their key takeaways:
Treat law school like your first professional job.
Bowden encouraged students to take advantage of access to professors and seek their guidance rather than trying to navigate difficult material alone. Walden similarly urged students to make law school a priority and to be intentional about learning from classmates who excel in different legal areas, as well as faculty.
Stay open to where a legal career can lead.
All three panelists described careers that evolved in directions they hadn’t necessarily anticipated in law school. Crawford encouraged students not to arrive with a fixed idea of where they must end up. Opportunities others overlook, she said, can sometimes become defining moments in a career. For her, that arose through first managing discovery, which became her specialty and led to managing the nation’s first electronic discovery case in the complex Enron case that began in 2001. She then leveraged that skill to become an expert in technology and the law, and is now focused on AI.
Get legal experience (even if it isn’t your dream job).
The panelists emphasized internships, summer work and other law-related opportunities as ways to test practice areas and workplace environments. Students can learn as much from discovering what they don’t enjoy as from finding an immediate fit.
Build relationships deliberately.
Walden reminded students that their professional networks already include the classmates sitting beside them. When meeting practicing attorneys, he advised students to follow up, reference the conversation and give the attorney something memorable to know about their own interests and goals.
Referencing a specific conversation and expressing interest in continuing it can help turn a brief introduction into a meaningful professional connection, he said.
The panel was only one part of the board’s interaction with students. Members joined students for a community dinner in the Elon Law Library on Wednesday, Sept. 16, creating opportunities for informal conversations about careers, law school and professional life.
Those connections continued Thursday, Sept. 17, when board members met with students in smaller mentoring conversations over lunch.
The interactions reflect Elon Law’s emphasis on connecting students with practicing attorneys, judges and other leaders throughout their legal education, as well as the Advisory Board’s dedication to providing top-notch law school experience to law students as they develop professional networks and clearer understanding of opportunities available.