Recent Cooley Law School graduate Morgan Prybys is turning a longtime dream of becoming a lawyer into a career focused on helping others. Prybys, who began her professional journey working in security before becoming a paralegal, was recently recognized with the Cooley Alumni Association Distinguished Student Award at the law school’s Honors Convocation. The award recognized her academic journey, involvement and commitment to supporting those around her. During her time at Cooley, Prybys was involved with several student organizations and served as a teaching assistant. She also gained hands-on experience through Cooley’s SixtyPlus ElderLaw Clinic, building on her interest in estate planning and elder law. Her legal interests also include compliance, an area in which she earned a Certificate of Merit. Her journey from doubting whether law school was possible to earning her J.D. and receiving recognition for her accomplishments reflects the persistence and growth that shaped her legal education. Read more about Morgan Prybys and her journey in the Legal News.
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“The defining step in the journey to where I am today is the time I served in the United States Marine Corps where I was taught discipline, leadership, and the value of team work. The Marine Corps’ motto is Adapt, Improvise and Overcome. I have lived by that code for most of my adult life and it has brought me much success.” – Cooley Law School graduate Debra Steele
Almost 42 years after being sent to prison for robbery and murder, two crimes he didn't commit, LeDura (Ledora) Watkins was released on June 15, 2017, thanks to the efforts of the Cooley Innocence Project. Following a motion for a new trial, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office agreed to vacate the judgment of conviction and dismiss all charges in the 1975 murder of a Detroit woman. Watkins had spent more than two-thirds of his life in prison for no reason.
“I should have been in jail. I should have been dead. I should have been insane,” explained Earl “Gunny” Christensen, a veterans treatment court graduate, about his life up until he found help at the court three years earlier.
If you ask Mike Botke to describe exactly what Teen Court is all about, he tells you straight up. “The Teen Court Program really is about holding young people accountable and giving them a second chance in life,” explains Botke. “Because we all know what happens to people when you have a criminal record. We don’t want these young people to have a criminal record.”
Scott Beute thought he was driving down a straight road when he graduated in 1993 with a mechanical engineering degree and a lifelong love for cars. Yet something inside him started steering him in another direction. “I kept finding excuses for not going back to school,” laughed Scott. “I knew that I wanted to further my education and my career, but didn’t know what that would be. Going to law school had really never crossed my mind. But one day I was listening to a friend of mine’s wife, who was a paralegal, talking about how Cooley Law School had opened a campus in Grand Rapids. She was trying to convince her husband that he needed to go to law school. Well, the funny thing was that my friend never ended up going to law school, but I did.”
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If you are a golfer, then you know that summer is golf outing season. But for golfer and Cooley Law School graduate Vincent Welicka, it really means it’s time to join up with his fellow graduates and friends for his law school’s annual alumni golf outing – in fact, for him and his team, that’s every summer since it started 26 years ago.
Going to law school was a hard decision, but really, it was the right one for Tampa Bay area couple Bryan and Elizabeth Devolder. The easy part was recognizing and knowing that a legal career was something they both wanted to do. The hard part was making sure it could work for them; given that they both came from management positions, making good salaries, and working around family life and the day-to-day responsibilities that go along with it.
Traditionally, each court hosting an induction ceremony for new attorneys asks the individual performing highest on the Bar exam to speak. This spring, The Hon. Craig C. Villanti, chief judge of the Florida Second District Court of Appeal, invited Maryam Saleh, a recent Cooley Law School graduate and top Bar performer in the district, to speak on behalf of the attorneys being sworn in that day. The Second District covers 14 counties in five judicial circuits. There are five total District Courts of Appeal in Florida. We are proud and honored of Maryam and her accomplishments. Below is her speech from May 9, 2016, along with video excerpts about her journey in life, in law school, and what drives her going forward.
