Innovative Law Center Careers Program Earns Thurgood Marshall Educator Award for Chancellor Pierre

An innovative approach to career possibilities for Southern University Law Center graduates, led by Chancellor John Pierre, has broadened the school’s training for students and placed leaders in C-suites, fellowships, and other top positions around the United States. Pierre was recently named Thurgood Marshall College Fund Educator of the Year for the initiatives.

Pierre, a Louisiana native and youngest son of a sugar cane farmer, earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Southern University and A&M College in 1980, a master’s in tax accounting at Texas Tech in 1982, and a law degree from southern Methodist University, in 1985. He joined the Law Center faculty in 1990 and conceived the career strategy in the wake of the 2008 recession that shrank opportunities in traditional legal jobs such as courts and law firms.

“It required us to look at things differently and to provide opportunities for our students in ways they never thought they could have,” he recalls. “What can we do to help our students have robust, transformative careers and still not be affected by the activities going on as a trend in the legal market? We could help students get into other career opportunities where legal skills are relevant.”

That mindset unlocked a vast potential, including corporate compliance opportunities; legal issues such as privacy relating to vital cybersecurity; diversity, equity, and inclusion; intellectual property protection; gaming and esports; entertainment and professional sports; and myriad other fields.

Around that time, Andre Porter, a new law student with an undergraduate degree in engineering was trying to find ways to unite the different sets of expertise when Pierre suggested becoming a patent lawyer. After graduation, Porter enrolled in Georgetown University’s patent law program; he is now a patent attorney at Baker-Hughes in Houston.

When Pierre started a part-time evening program for working students, before he became interim chancellor in 2015 and chancellor in 2016, he noticed that the new students were mature professionals who could take their new knowledge and degree back to the corporate world. One of them, Paula Shepherd, was working at Blue Cross Blue Shield Louisiana; a competitor tried to lure her by paying for law school, and the negotiations led to her becoming Senior Vice President of Benefit Operations.

“Her legal education made a difference,” Pierre says. “The skills she acquired enabled her to be a C-suite executive rather than just a middle manager. We said, ‘What if we take that same attitude to everybody in the building?’”

In addition to its traditional training in such traditional fields as tax, family, domestic violence, and bankruptcy law, the center started a Technology and Entrepreneurship Law clinic, the only one in Louisiana with a process for people to acquire patents, trademarks, and copyright and licensing protection. It helps entrepreneurs from the small business development center next door with incorporation documents, non compete and nondisclosure documents, and other legal work for startups. It added more legal clinics where students gain customer service and other soft skills by working with clients on real-world issues. It holds a boot camp for students to learn about artificial intelligence, block chain, and other leading-edge technologies that lawyers will encounter.

“When we started introducing these students to these opportunities, they flourished,” Pierre says, adding that Silicon Valley firms, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and other organizations have supported the effort. Two students have won Hennessey fellowships, $40,000 a year plus up to $10,000 for service projects, and a chance at internships with the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH. Last year, the Law Center received a federal grant to establish a Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) Business Center.

To help ease the labor shortage after the COVID-19 pandemic, the Law Center helps citizens get disqualifying small crimes on their record expunged, a process that is still costly even when marijuana legalization and other factors make it possible. The expungement initiative is funded through grants and partnerships with state organizations, such as Louisiana Workforce Commission, because of its significant impact on employment.

Law Center students and supervising attorneys also help people gain clear title to their land that might have been inherited without a probated will or legal succession paperwork. Lack of title prevents owners from receiving federal assistance or insurance after disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

Pierre says employers who hire Law Center graduates notice their work ethic, their exceptional qualities – “gritty, resilient, hungry for new opportunities, willing to do the work, showing up with intent” – and seek to recruit more. The institution’s reputation also attracts students from across the country – 40 percent now come from outside Louisiana.