Colton McRae, a 3L Business and Finance Law student, is currently doing an internship in the Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York through the GW Law in New York (GWNY) Program.
GWNY offers a unique experiential learning opportunity for GW Law Business and Finance students. Participating students spend a semester doing externships in government agencies, courts, or public interest organizations focused on business and finance law. The students also have a full semester of courses led by GW Law Professor of Practice, Jeff Kohn, and a group of adjunct professors who are experienced lawyers working in law firms and investment banks. In addition, students benefit from bi-monthly programs/ workshops and mentoring and networking opportunities with private practitioners, in-house lawyers, and government lawyers.
We sat down with McRae, who said he decided to pursue the program at the advice of Professor Jeffrey Manns, who is the faculty director of the GWNY program. So far, the experience has been tremendously valuable, McRae said.
Read the full conversation below.
Why did you want to go to law school, and why did you choose business law?
When I first started college, I was majoring in economics, and I wanted to go into investment banking. I found throughout my first year that I struggled in calculus and the other math classes, but I really excelled at research and writing. So I decided to switch my major to political science.
I had law school in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t really certain. I thought, “Well, this is what I’m better at, so I’ll stick with this.” As graduation got closer and as I got up into junior and senior year, I started realizing that, in government, there aren’t as many opportunities as there are in business. So I started wondering, is there a way I can maneuver back over towards working in business? And I knew some people who had not majored in finance or in economics or something like that in undergrad, but still found good jobs working at financial institutions by getting advanced degrees. So I decided to explore law school. Going to work in corporate law can be a way I can still tap into those interests I had as far as business and finance goes, which is well-suited to my legal research skillset.
What made you choose GW Law?
I chose D.C. for personal reasons, but out of all the law schools in D.C., GW gave me a very generous scholarship and I thought they had great national name recognition. I knew I probably wanted to go back to Texas, but I still wanted to be open to possibly staying in D.C. long term or going to New York. GW was a school that would not close off any doors in terms of where I wanted to end up.
How did you first find out about the GWNY program, and what made you interested in it?
I came across it when looking through the GW website. I had heard about how you could get a concentration in business and finance law so I was looking through that section and looking at all of the course offerings. This was when I was in the spring semester of my 1L year, figuring out what classes I wanted to take during my 2L year. At that point, I had it in the back of my mind, but I talked to Professor Manns, and he said, “Since you have a summer associate position lined up, you should probably wait until the spring of 2L or fall of 3L. It would be valuable for you to take corporations and some other core classes to build a foundation first.”
So I did that. Whenever I was applying to jobs for my 2L summer I talked to Professor Manns a lot, and he encouraged me to apply in New York. I told him I was really leaning towards moving back to Texas and he said essentially, “If that’s your long-term goal, that’s great. Go where you want to go, but I would recommend you go to New York for at least a short amount of time because that’s the center of the law and finance world, and you can always move back to Texas.”
For my second summer job, I ended up going to a firm in Houston. But I thought GWNY would be a great opportunity to still get six months in New York, meet people here, build connections here, experience what life is like working in New York, before going back to Texas after graduation.
What is your current internship? What have you learned so far in that experience?
I’m at the bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York. I research cases to make sure that what the parties are citing is substantiated, so that how they are framing the cases is accurate. I cite check the opinions and I do the final touch-ups before they go out for publication.
What it has taught me most, and I think this is especially true of bankruptcy, is how much financial knowledge you have to have. Even though you think, “I’m a lawyer, or I’m a clerk, I only have to know the law,” that’s not really true. When you’re interpreting some of these documents that parties are citing, you have to understand all the terms they’re referencing.
That made me realize, not only do I need to understand corporate law, but I need to understand accounting metrics and what EBITDA (Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) means. So I think that’s probably what it has taught me most. You don’t need to have the same knowledge as an accountant or an analyst, but you need to understand the concepts.
How do you think the GWNY experience will help you when you enter your legal career?
GW has great externship opportunities in DC through the Field Placement Office, but if you’re interested in business and finance law, there’s a higher concentration of those in New York. So if you’re interested in business and finance law, New York is the place to be. It’s a good thing to have on the resume.
I also think about all of the connections I’ve made here in New York. If I ever want to come back to New York, those are there. Even if I want to move to another firm in Texas, I know people now at firms who have offices in New York and in Houston and Dallas.
So knowing people within those firms, both the professors we have, who are partners at firms, and also the mentors we’re assigned, who are junior and midlevel associates, just having those connections long term will serve me well if I ever need them.
What do you think is the value of the experiential learning GW Law offers?
I wish I had done more actually. I wish I had done some in my second year because you get credits for them. It's not much harder than doing classes, but I think it’s much more valuable. You know the material you learn in class is important, but you can learn much of that studying for the bar, and I think getting as much experience as you can in a real work setting is important because that’s what you’re going to be doing for the rest of your life. Especially if you want to go clerk, I think interning in judicial chambers is going to be much more valuable than taking a class. They sell bar prep courses; they don’t sell a textbook to teach you how to operate in a real workplace setting.
What advice do you have for other GW Law students?
Do as many internships as you can, starting your second year. Start looking when you’re a first year and do it as many times as you can; as many credits as you can get through field placement. Try to explore a variety of things. I’m very lucky now that, between my first summer job, second summer job, and now GWNY, I’ve been at a law firm, a public interest organization, and in judicial chambers. So I think trying to get a broad range of experiences like that is good.
I would also recommend GWNY if you have any interest in business and finance law, even if you’re not sure that’s necessarily what you want to do, or even if you're not sure that you want to be in New York long term. I think if you’re interested in either of those things even tangentially, it’s worth a shot. It’s a good opportunity. It's very unique. I don't know any other law school that offers a program like this.
A lot of law schools have a study abroad program in the summer in Europe, but they don’t have an opportunity to be in D.C. and New York, the two most important cities in the legal market, while you’re in law school for three years. So I would highly recommend it.