THE YELLOW JACKET-AT-LAW
NO MATTER WHAT CAREER GEORGIA TECH GRADUATES PURSUE, UNDERSTANDING HOW THE LAW INTERSECTS WITH TECHNOLOGY
IS AN INCREASINGLY ESSENTIAL SKILL.
BY: MICHAEL PEARSON
PROFILES BY: KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI
Emma Menardi knew she wanted to go to law school long before the first day she set foot on Georgia Tech's Campus.
“The Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts is really focused on interdisciplinarity, and I’m interested in the ways social sciences and historical perspectives influence the law,” says Menardi, a second-year double major in public policy and history, technology, and science. “My big interest is civil rights law, so being in Atlanta made perfect sense.”
For students like Menardi, who is from Johns Creek, Ga., the Law, Science, and Technology (LST) program in the School of Public Policy is a crucial link to the world of law at an institution better known for producing engineers than future lawyers.
She and others recognize that Tech is uniquely positioned to mold the type of future lawyer who can combine technical know-how, problem-solving skills, and an analytical mindset to succeed in the legal field where others might not. It’s that unique combination of traits that makes Yellow Jackets suited to tackling issues at the intersection of law, science, technology, and policy.
Just ask Duke Hatcher, a fifth-year computer science student from Orlando, Fla., who is currently working as an intern at Alston & Bird, an Atlanta law firm that counts the late golfing legend and Georgia Tech alumnus Bobby Jones, ME 1922, among its founding partners. Hatcher hopes to attend law school and then practice privacy law.
“Technology is involved in every industry, and we as the human race are generating data at unprecedented levels. This means that every day there are new challenges, unexplored legal issues, and new cases to be heard. It isn’t often that you can truly help create and shape the law, but privacy is such a field,” Hatcher says.
From Tech to Attorney
LST Director Chad Slieper, PP 02, is in the second year of an effort to expand and revitalize the 21-year-old program. He worked to bring pre-law advising back to the School of Public Policy and has expanded course offerings, internship opportunities, and alumni engagement. Students have revived the dormant chapter of the pre-law fraternity Phi Alpha Delta. The program also supervises the nationally recognized Georgia Tech Mock Trial Team.
Slieper also is working on making the program a campus hub for discussing issues at the intersection of law, science, and technology.
“From climate change to pandemics, law both affects, and is affected by, how we approach novel issues in science and technology,” Slieper says. “The LST program encourages students and faculty to explore the intersection of these topics.”
He knows from experience how such issues play out in the legal field. He graduated from Tech with a bachelor’s in public policy and then went on to Emory University School of Law and pursued a career in professional ethics in the healthcare and legal industries. He returned to the Institute in 2019 to lead the LST program. He teaches courses, advises students, and helps program events, including routine opportunities for students to hear from attorneys and talk to law-school admissions counselors.
Marilyn Brown, acting chair in the School of Public Policy, says LST’s work is a vital part of the school’s mission to help find policy solutions to public issues related to science and technological innovation. “The LST program is part of what makes this school unique, and I’m thrilled to see how it has expanded to serve more students, including graduate students, and that it has branched out to cover important new topics such as environmental law and bioethics,” Brown says. “Public policy and law naturally go hand-in-hand, and LST helps Georgia Tech students get the kind of working understanding of the legal process that will serve them well in any career they pursue, whether that career is in law or not.”
Smooth Path to Law School
Georgia Tech’s pre-law program helps current students get to law school, but it’s played a role in helping alumni get there, too.
Watson Griffith, BA 15, who attends UCLA School of Law on a full scholarship, credits his acceptance at a top law school to Slieper’s assistance. Griffith had already graduated and spent time in the Peace Corps before deciding to attend law school. He had no idea what help his alma mater might be able to provide when he called Slieper.
“He and a friend in law school were the only two people I talked to about my application. The assistance I got from Georgia Tech was so instrumental,” Griffith says. Slieper also sends out a regular newsletter containing crucial information about internship opportunities in the legal field that give students experience and help fortify law school applications.
Shekinah Hall, PP 19, had five internships during her undergraduate study at Georgia Tech. She learned of three of them through LST—including one that led to her current job at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
“It was incredible to get different perspectives to round out what I was learning in classes,” says Hall, who is working on her law school application. “So, between that and my participation in Georgia Tech’s Mock Trial Team, I got such a well-rounded experience coming out of undergrad.”
From Tech to the Courtroom and Back Again
The involvement of alumni who have gone on to practice law has always been a crucial part of Georgia Tech’s program, says Roberta Berry, associate professor in the School of Public Policy and director of the Georgia Tech Honors Program.
Berry took over the nascent pre-law program after the sudden death of its founder, William Read, who also created a certificate in pre-law. Berry recruited a handful of alumni lawyers to come back to campus to teach classes and work with students.
“There was great enthusiasm then for giving back, especially with the sense at the time that law was an unusual thing to be pursuing at Tech,” Berry says.
One alumna who has stayed with the program is Katie Tinsley, BC 08, an attorney with J.E. Dunn Construction. She returned to Georgia Tech to teach a course on judicial process with another Atlanta attorney. They are two of more than a dozen part-time lecturers in the LST program. Many are Georgia Tech alumni.
Tinsley said the LST program and the classes that students take as part of the minor help many of them cement their desire for a law career.
“But we also always have students who will acknowledge that they no longer want to go to law school and we’re almost equally excited by that response as we are by those who want to continue,” she says. “What a waste it is for someone to go to law school for three years and practice law for a couple of years and then realize they’re not happy. That’s not good for anybody.”
This personal, hands-on support is important, says Berry, who continued to lead the program until 2005 and worked with Slieper, then a student, to develop what is now known as the minor in Law, Science, and Technology.
“Unless you have a lawyer in the family or have some other connection, you have no idea what the possibilities are,” Berry says.
Next Up on the Docket
Slieper hopes to continue expanding the LST program’s course offerings, which includes options for students interested in an area of law who don’t necessarily plan to go to law school.
“Historically, many of our courses focus on topics of interest to future litigators,” Slieper says. “Offerings we develop in the future will seek to round that out with a focus on topics of interest to students who may not want to be litigators. This might include ethics and compliance, transactions, and negotiations.”
Slieper sees a bright future for the LST program and what it can accomplish.
“Georgia Tech is uniquely positioned to prepare students for legal careers in a world where technology is an everincreasing force in law,” he said. “We have a real opportunity to make an impact.”
KEEP TESLA ROLLING: M. YUSUF MOHAMED, MGT 93
A TESLA DOES NOT RUN ON ITS VAUNTED ELECTRIC POWERTRAIN ALONE.
PHOTO: JOHN DISNEY/ALM
The vehicle is the sum of its parts, all working in precise synchronization to move its passengers successfully down the road. As deputy general counsel at Tesla, M. Yusuf Mohamed collaborates and coordinates with multiple teams and departments, synchronizing their efforts to advance the Silicon Valley giant and create consistent policies and messaging for its stakeholders and more than 50,000 employees.
Mohamed’s talent for teamwork was first forged while earning his management degree at Tech. “My classes were very focused on teamwork and team projects,” he says. “That kind of collaboration is vital for the work that I and my legal team do every single day.”
He refined that skill during his nearly nine years as associate counsel, and then, associate general counsel at Wayne Farms, the country’s fifth-largest poultry producer. As one of only two in-house attorneys for the $2 billion company, he was tapped on issues ranging from commercial contracts to employment law (a specialty from his seven years at the Department of Labor) to environmental regulations to interviewing job candidates. He particularly prized his participation on a cross-functional team that partnered him with marketing, finance, and logistics leaders to turn around a flagging business unit.
“That experience was formative for me and relevant when I went to Tesla,” he says. “Tesla was still a young company when I joined in 2014. I saw a lot of working groups that didn’t know how to talk to each other. I realized this is how I could contribute, by being able to pull from different disciplines so we could solve a problem in one area without creating a problem for another area.”
As Tesla’s staff has increased five-fold during his six years with the company, Mohamed has incubated and expanded the immigration, employment relations, and employee engagement teams. He assembled the most diverse team in the legal department. He has handled workplace investigations and participated in due diligence reviews on acquisitions. And he has shared his institutional knowledge with new hires from the C Suite on down.
“One of the benefits of having been with the company for so long is I am able to connect people to the right resources to get their problems solved,” he says.
That was crucial when the pandemic struck. Mohamed helped guide the company as it closed down, then ramped back up not only its manufacturing sites but Tesla stores in compliance with widely varying local Covid ordinances around the world. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says. “It has been a defining point in my 23-year career.”
His collaborations have always been a two-way street, gaining him new knowledge while sharing his. It’s the same approach he takes as a volunteer instructor at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. A competitive driver in the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) circuit, Mohamed accompanies novice drivers as they fulfill their need for speed through the SCCA’s Performance Driving Experience.
“It’s sort of a sneaky way for me to get on the track,” he confesses. “But I get to see the track from a different perspective. I am sitting in the passenger seat, watching rookies make mistakes that I’m probably unconsciously making, too. I might be helping them, but it gives me the opportunity to learn from them, too.”
HOLDING COURT: TIMOTHY BATTEN, IM 81
DURING HIS 22 YEARS AS A TRIAL LAWYER IN ATLANTA, TIMOTHY BATTEN WOULD OFTEN LOOK
AT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BENCH AND IMAGINE WHAT HE MIGHT DO IF HE WERE A JUDGE.
“The idea of being a judge was always appealing to me,” he says.
He no longer has to imagine. In 2006, the U.S. Senate confirmed Batten’s appointment by President George W. Bush as a U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Georgia. The district, one of 94 in the country, serves nearly seven million people in the greater Atlanta area.
At any given time, Batten has a pending docket of around 300 cases, the majority of them civil cases, with some criminal cases in the mix as well. “One of the biggest changes (in transitioning from lawyer to judge) is that you have to redefine winning,” he says. “As a lawyer, winning meant getting a favorable verdict from a jury. As a judge, winning means getting to the bottom of a case and correctly determining who's right and who's not right.”
Among his varied and numerous decisions, he has signed off on a $14 million settlement among estranged members of the country band Sugarland, heard a clemency request for a death row inmate, decided an internet privacy case involving a Facebook photo of a bikini-clad high school student, and ruled on litigation to delay Georgia’s primary election during the pandemic.
“There’s no shortage of drama in the courtroom,” he says. “I think that real litigation can be as interesting or dramatic as any depicted in a play or movie or book. The real deal can be riveting.”
Contrary to TV depictions of judges, Batten spends far less time on the bench than in his chambers, researching cases, editing orders for his law clerks, and writing opinions. He credits his Tech industrial management degree for not only his comfort with numbers in nine-figure settlements and empirical approach to managing staff but his writing chops as well. “English professor Robert Reno did more toward helping me become a good writer than any other professor I ever had in college or law school,” he says. “Writing is what we judges do for a living, in my opinion.”
He shares his opinions and expertise as an instructorin-residence teaching “Introduction to the American Legal System” at his legal alma mater, the University of Georgia Law School. “I try to make my lectures interesting, amusing, and informative with the real-world material I have from being a judge and lawyer for 36 years,” he says. “It’s not that difficult to do.”
HAVING THE EAR OF THE GOVERNOR: CANDICE BROCE, MGT 11
WHEN CANDICE BROCE JOINED THE OFFICE OF GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE BRIAN KEMP IN 2015 FOR HER FIRST FULL-TIME JOB AFTER LAW SCHOOL, SHE WAS DRAWN BY THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK ON MULTIPLE ISSUES AT ONCE.
“If people know about the Secretary of State office, it usually has to do with elections,” she says. “They don’t realize all that the office actually covers, from corporate registrations to professional licensing to charity registration. As a staff attorney, I got to dabble in basically everything.”
Kemp’s election as governor in 2018 has brought Broce an even greater wealth of new opportunities as she has served on his executive staff. As communications director, she managed the governor’s communications staff and coordinated their efforts with peers across state agencies. She was the face of the administration in answering questions from both the media and citizens, especially during the pandemic.
“The best approach is to make sure you’re giving a personalized response,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be the answer they hoped for; you just need to give them a response so that they are not left hanging in the balance.”
As chief deputy executive counsel, she worked behind the scenes to advise Kemp on policies, particularly the executive orders detailing how businesses could operate during Covid-19. “My business background from Tech was incredibly helpful in writing those,” she says. “You can’t shut down a business overnight; there’s tens of thousands of dollars in inventory to consider. I was able to bring those things to the table as a lawyer for the governor because of the commonsense approach I got from Tech.”
On Nov. 1, Kemp announced Broce’s promotion to chief operating officer. She’ll be directly responsible for overseeing around 35 state agencies, ranging from the Department of Natural Resources to the Department of Driver Services. She’ll coordinate with all of them on such issues as budgeting, employee training, and consistent communication—the same wide range of opportunities that first enticed her to join the Kemp administration. “One of my Tech professors always emphasized the value of human capital, in making sure to keep employee morale up and that people know what they can do to succeed,” she says. “That has already been really important, but will especially be so now in my new role.”
AMERICA'S LAWYER: MICHELLE BENNETT, STC 10
MICHELLE BENNETT REPRESENTS ONE OF THE LARGEST, MOST PROMINENT CLIENTS A LAWYER COULD HAVE: THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.
She joined the DOJ in 2008 through its highly competitive honors program, after clerking for two federal judges. She quickly found that her science, technology, and culture degree from Tech served her well in her work. “The ability to take in and analyze complicated information and turn it around in a way that’s clear, concise, and compelling either in writing or orally is something that I learned at Tech and that is incredibly important,” she says.
As assistant director of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Division, Federal Programs Branch, Bennett defends the United States and its federal agencies in litigation challenging the constitutionality of federal statutes and the legality of government programs and policy decisions. She has represented the gamut from the State Department and Department of Defense to the Education Department and Health and Human Services.
“For example, I’ve worked on a lot of litigation involving the Medicare statute, which is incredibly complex. The ability to understand it and make compelling arguments to judges who aren’t familiar with it and the related issues is very helpful.”
In addition, her HHS caseload has included high-profile lawsuits involving the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and coverage for contraceptives for women.
Among her favorite cases was a suit involving the Education Department’s gainful employment regulations, which assess whether certain higher-ed programs prepared their students for employment that would allow them to repay loans. “It was super interesting work that had real-world consequences for students and colleges,” she says. “That’s not something you often get to do in private practice.”