When Reda Taleb (McLean Class, 2015) talks about “giving back,” she isn’t just reciting a slogan — she’s living by example. The daughter of immigrants from Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, Taleb’s parents, along with her six older siblings, laid roots in Dearborn’s south end, an area known for its pollution-emitting factory smoke stacks and community of Arab Americans seeking the “American Dream.”
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Blog contributor Otto Stockmeyer is a Cooley Distinguished Professor Emeritus. He represented mid-Michigan lawyers on the State Bar Board of Commissioners and in the ABA House of Delegates. The following is based on his three-part series of articles profiling Lansing-area State Bar presidents, published in the Ingham County Bar Association newsletter, BRIEFS.
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.”
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.
Cooley Law School 1976 graduate, Board Chair, and State Bar of Michigan President Lawrence P. Nolan was the keynote speaker for the Cooley law student Christian Legal Society this month. He shared with the law students and guests how when tested in your career, by a client or in a case, you can use your faith to get through it. This blog originally posted on April 7, 2017, on our old blog site.
The Tampa Bay campus of Cooley Law School honored 43 graduates during a commencement ceremony held at University of South Florida’s Marshall Center. Students received their diplomas during the ceremony for earning their juris doctor degrees. Cooley 1976 graduate, Board Chair, and State Bar of Michigan President Lawrence P. Nolan was the keynote speaker. Below is his speech and advice to the newly minted attorneys. This blog originally posted on January 17, 2017, on our old blog site.
This blog was originally posted May 18, 2016. 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 Western Michigan University 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.
Jon Cooper Leads Tampa Bay Lightning to 2020 & 21 Stanley Cup Championships From Law School to a Career Coaching in the NHL In a Summer 2016 Benchmark Alumni Magazine Cover feature, graduate Jon Cooper talks about his interesting career path, starting in law school and a legal career, to following his passion to lead as a coach in the National Hockey League. Near the end of the 2012-13 season, Jon Cooper landed the top job with the Tampa Bay Lightning organization. Only one season later, in 2015, Cooper led the Bolts to the Eastern Conference Championship, only to miss hoisting the cup by two games in the Stanley Cup finals. In 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, Jon Cooper's Bolt's are laser focused, with one goal in mind; bring the Stanley Cup home to Tampa. You did it! Embrace the moment! Toughest prize in all sports in the toughest Playoff in the history of the NHL. Congratulations! This year, the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup for the second straight season with a 1-0 victory against the Montreal Canadiens in Game 5 of the Final at Amalie Arena on July 7, 2021. The Tampa Bay team, and all the teams who made the playoffs, sacrificed much to get to this point. In a July 28, 2020 NBCSports article, the" NHL players from the 24 playoff teams woke up to their new reality Monday in the hub cities of Toronto and Edmonton, Alberta. Quarantined bubble life began with the league reporting zero positive coronavirus test results last week, and this existence away from the public is scheduled to last until the Stanley Cup is awarded in the fall." Winner and Leader: Now and Then In another alumni publication that ran during the 2011-12 year where his team won the Calder Cup championship for the Norfolk Admirals, the Lightning’s American Hockey League affiliate, Cooper, a 1999 Cooley Law School graduate, points back to his time in law school where he learned his survival skills for success. “Cooley Law School taught me survival,” said Cooper. “No one who graduates from Cooley was given a silver spoon; they worked hard. I took lessons learned at Cooley and throughout my life, and I applied them to coaching.” “He’s such a great motivator,” Michigan State University sophomore forward Anthony Hayes, a former player of Cooper’s, told the Lansing State Journal. “Our players came to the rink every day ready to impress him. When Jon Cooper walks into a room, he has great presence.” Cooper also attributes that presence to his time at Cooley. “My education at Cooley gave me confidence in public speaking and an ability to think on my feet,” said Cooper. “Those moot court and mock court competitions have brought out an ability that helps me daily.” Lightning player Tyler Johnson agrees with that assessment in an NHL.com 4-14-2015 story about Jon Cooper. Johnson said “Cooper uses his courtroom tactics on the bench and in video sessions. Like any good lawyer, he seeks opinions before stating his case and he chooses his words carefully when making his final argument.” To us here at Cooley, Jon Cooper is a leader on and off the ice.
