– PHOTO COURTESY OF JENNIFER FISCHELL
By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
As an undergraduate at Cornell, Jennifer Fischell studied Mandarin and linguistics – and thought she might use those skills to enter law and do international transactional law with Chinese clients. A passion for law further increased after a summer job of paralegal work at Honigman in Kalamazoo, handling transactional work.
“Little did I know that by the time I graduated law school, I would end up being interested in, and doing, something completely different,” she says.
And little did she know the challenges she would face at the University of Michigan School of Law, after winning a full ride Darrow merit scholarship. Bad-ly injured in a skiing accident on her 1L year spring break, she missed two weeks of classes and returned to Ann Arbor in a wheelchair, unable to walk until her broken leg healed.
A friend recorded every lecture she had missed. The law school found her a wheelchair-accessible dorm room. Class-mates wheeled her to and from classes and meals. The Dean of Students delivered and picked up a final exam she took in her room. And the faculty pieced together projects to work on over a summer of physical therapy in Ann Arbor.
“I’ve never felt so supported by my community,” she says. “I’m not sure you can call this defining experience something I enjoyed, but it represents the U-M community I love.”
At the end of her 3L year, she was a finalist in the prestigious Campbell Moot Court Compe-tition, and at graduation, was selected by faculty as one of two students to receive the Henry M. Bates Memorial Scholarship Award, widely held to be the Law School’s highest honor and given to outstanding seniors, with account taken for scholarship in legal studies, personality, character, extracurricular interests, and promise of a distinguished career.
Fischell’s intensive involvement in activities at MLaw included working with Student Funded Fellowships raising money for public interest students; helping to run, and competing in, the Campbell Moot Court Competition; and serving as an Articles Editor on the Michigan Law Review.
She also worked with the Asia Law Society, and in her 1L year organized the “China” contingent of an Asia Law Society Symposium, helping to bring Chinese professors and practitioners to present a variety of business law topics.
“Given all the law school has done for me, giving back was the least I could do,” she says. “It’s a tremendous honor to receive the Bates award – and I’m beyond grateful for all the support I’ve received from friends and loved ones over the last three years. It meant a great deal to my family to hear my work recognized at graduation.”
Her skiing injury resulted in a change of law focus. Nixing plans to go to China at the end of her 1L year, instead she worked in the law library, worked as a teaching assistant for the Summer Starters’ legal writing class, and did research for a couple of professors. Several people highly recommended looking into clerkships – a career path that would offer substantive legal writing, something she came to love in law school and knew clerkships would emphasize.
“In what felt like a blink of an eye I went from planning on being a transactional attorney to having two federal clerkships,” she says.
Until July Fischell, who last year was a summer associate at Simpson Thacher in New York City, will work as a part-time law clerk at the U-M Office of General Counsel.
“I’m excited to get to work with the wonderful lawyers there and get a glimpse into what they do,” she says.
She also will intern remotely for Justice Joan Larsen on the Michigan Supreme Court, helping with research projects.
“I love legal research, and it will be good to keep those skills sharp over what would otherwise be a sleepy couple of months,” she says.
In August, she will start a year’s clerkship with Judge Raymond Kethledge on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“I’m looking forward to working with Judge Kethledge and the wonderful team of clerks he has put together for this year,” she says. “It will be a whirlwind, writing-intensive experience.”
She will then move to New York to clerk for Judge Ronnie Abrams of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
“I was able to meet with my future co-clerks last summer while I was in New York, and working with them and the judge will be terrific,” she says. “And I’m excited to return to the East Coast to be closer to my family there.”
In her leisure time, the New Jersey native enjoys reading, photography, and biking – and hopes to get back on skis sometime in the future.
She also has wonderful memories of four months in Beijing in 2012, doing an intensive and immersive Mandarin program, where she enjoyed trips to Chengdu, Xi An, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guilin, Yangshuo, and Hong Kong, and hiked Mount Emei.
“It was an amazing experience,” she says.
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