The court-martial experience at Fort Lewis had convinced me that I wanted to become a lawyer. The next challenge was figuring out what kind of lawyer I wanted to be.
It was November of my last year in a joint 4-year JD/MBA degree program at Indiana University and a comment from a business professor woke me up. He said it amazed him that students didn’t ignore classes their last semester and job hunt full time instead, as employers would never see that semester’s grades. That resonated with me so I then committed myself emotionally and professionally to a full-time job search for the spring semester. I met with a business school marketing professor for help drafting a resume for a law or business job and paid to have the resume printed professionally on high-quality paper.
My degrees allowed me to network in both the law and business schools’ placement offices, searching out actual and potential business and law jobs in and outside Indiana. I had worked with the IU business school executive education program as Assistant Director of the Indiana Executive Program for 3 years with an assistantship and had a preference for working with a company versus a law firm. I liked being around businessmen because they were highly practical, focusing on strategy, negotiation and solving real word problems and disliked law school because it focused on studying hypothetical scenarios and working for grades. But I felt the best fit for me would be a corporation law department where I could use both my law and MBA training for problem-solving without having to constantly seek clients and do the billable-hour grind of actual firm work. Each day beginning in December I stopped going to many classes and worked diligently making mailing lists, mailing out resumes, tracking responses, and making calls.
By March I had made three interview road trips and had 2 offers but not jobs I wanted. In April I got the offer I had been hoping for- a Fortune 500 company named Monsanto Company in a big city St. Louis. Monsanto was, to use a baseball analogy, in the big leagues in terms of law practice and I was apprehensive as I had little to no practical day-to-day law work experience. Kind of like just finishing high school baseball and being given a starting pitching game against the big league Chicago Cubs. But I had survived a tour in Vietnam and was in the first group to receive a joint degree so I just decided to go for it. I was excited. It was a dream come true after the misery of a Vietnam tour and homecoming and the hard work to earn the degrees. The salary offer would allow me to afford the American dream of a house, starting a family, and a stable future.
Indiana University Master of Business Administration Diploma-
Represented a Transition from Soldier to Business Professional, 1973
Missouri Bar Membership Certificate- Represented My Required Key to Monsanto Employment, 1973
I arrived at Monsanto and immediately felt out of place as the only attorney hired out of law school. All the attorneys had 3 or more years of experience. I realized that law school did not teach me how to be a lawyer. Law school taught me how to think like one. The path to becoming a lawyer would be one filled with uncertainty and self-doubt. So much of those early months felt like I did not know what the actual practice of law looked or felt like. I found myself playing “catch up” – trying to learn enough from past files and older attorneys to feel up-to-speed. I lacked day-to-day practical basics such as drafting and negotiating contracts, practical court procedures and filings, office politics, and most of all client relations. I needed to learn how to build client trust and who I could trust in the company. I watched the other attorneys carefully and sat in as many attorney-client meetings as I could to learn how to prepare and handle various client situations.
I pushed myself, spent late nights and weekends in the company or local law school library or at my desk doing legal and basic chemistry research, pouring over documents, editing and re-editing my work, convinced that at any moment my boss would figure out that I had no idea what I was doing. In retrospect, my first year of practice was the steepest learning curve I have ever encountered. I persevered, worked hard and long hours, did my job, did it well, and built confidence as I started to receive positive feedback.
Once I had a year’s experience in the corporate law department, I sought out opportunities in a Monsanto commercial agricultural operating company law group. Once on board there I found my fit with highly educated Ph.D. research chemists, MBAs, and a highly motivated and loyal workforce, many of whom had been with the company for 25-30 years and were extremely loyal and proud of the company. I continued to spend nights and weekends learning the pesticides produced, marketing and production plans, and the applicable laws and regulations. And most importantly I became part of project teams involved with complex and multi-million dollar issues. I dedicated my time and effort to networking with the team and supporting members to humbly build trust and accomplish company goals.
Over the 20 plus years I practiced law at Monsanto, I became a loyal company man, not seeking other employment, and my counsel saved the company millions in fines and liabilities. I had assumed loyalty would be a two-way street. The downsizing taught me otherwise. All of a sudden in 1996 the company downsized me for what they said were cost-cutting reasons. I had given the company my loyalty and the most productive years of my professional life. Luckily, a good friend and marketing guru at the company counseled me never to fall in love with a company and to focus on selling myself to a new employer. While I felt anger and frustration at being fired, I quickly pivoted to job search mode.
A week before I left Monsanto, I had accepted a position as Vice President, Legal of Heritage Eviromental Services, a waste disposal company in Indianapolis. By default, I inherited the personnel department head job which I did but never truly embraced. After managing several emotional cases as HR head, I knew I wanted to do something else. After a year and a half, I was downsized again in another cost-cutting measure, although I was glad to leave.
Indiana Bar Membership Certificate- Represented a Lengthy and Painstaking Process to Practice in My Second State, 1996
I accepted a position as an immigration attorney in a St. Louis law firm in 1997. That lasted 6 months before the immigrant investor program I worked on was frozen by the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service. There was a lot of fraud involved in that program and I did not like the law firm environment so I submitted my resignation.
Amid this career challenge, I went to a 3-day Marianst retreat location on the Mississippi River followed by a week’s retreat at a Trappist monastery in Ava, Missouri. After much soul searching, and a telephone call offering me a position as an environmental attorney for Georgia-Pacific Corporation in Atlanta, Georgia, I accepted the position and worked at G-P in Atlanta from 1998-2002.
My Georgia Bar Membership Certificate- Another Lengthly and Painstaking Process To Practice Law in My Third State, 2006
Looking back, being downsized twice and changing careers several times taught me that my value was not tied to any one employer. What felt like career disasters at the time forced me to reinvent myself and discover strengths I didn't know I possessed. I learned that careers. like life itself, rarely follows a straight line. Success came less from brilliance than persistence, adaptability, and a willingness to keep learning. While there were disappointments and setbacks, I was fortunate to spend my career working with talented people, and contributing to causes I believed mattered. I would choose the same path again.
Note- Monsanto Company doesn’t exist anymore as it was bought by Bayer.
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