Chapman University School of Law offers “Facilitating Business: A Conversation between Business and Law”

ORANGE, Calif. – In a partnership with the Orange County Financial Society (OCFS), the Chapman University School of Law is launching a new component to the Law School’s existing mentoring programs. The new component is an event on March 28 that will bring together leaders from the business community with law students, MBA students and undergrads engaged in the entrepreneurship program at Chapman, in an effort to provide real-world expertise on what business people need from their attorneys. This aligns with the Law School’s new Business Emphasis Program which begins this spring.

“Facilitating Business: A Conversation between Business and Law” is the name of the event, which will feature a dinner, panel discussion, and speed mentoring designed to connect future lawyers and entrepreneurs with Southern California’s business leaders. There will be opening remarks from Law School Dean Tom Campbell, Ph.D. followed by comments from Richard Sudek, Ph.D., Director of Chapman’s Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics. Some 70 mentors from the Orange County business community will meet with law students in intimate small group settings during the course of the evening.

“In my role as co-creator we have spearheaded the idea that it would be in everyone’s benefit—Chapman Law, Chapman Entrepreneur Program and the Orange County Financial Society—to create an event with the idea of uplifting both the law students and the business community while advancing Chapman’s School of Law’s Business Emphasis Program,” said Dolf Keller, past president, OCFS. Another co-creator for the event is OCFS board member and attorney Susan Medwied.

The panel discussion will feature: James Mulcahy, Esq., Mulcahy LLP; Martin Florman, Esq., Buchalter Nemer, APLC; Diane W. Biagianti, Esq., Vice President, Chief Responsibility Officer, Edwards Lifesciences LLC; and Janet Richardson, Esq., Division Counsel, Abbott Medical Optics.

Chapman’s School of Law has an existing mentoring program with OCFS for its students, which kicks off March 21. The existing program matches current law students who have a strong interest in business law with professionals from the OCFS. 

“Last year in the program’s initial launch, Chapman students enjoyed opportunities to meet one-on-one with their mentors and diverse business professionals from the OCFS who provided encouragement, guidance, and insight to the aspiring young future business-minded lawyers,” said, Suzanna Adelizi, assistant dean of career services at Chapman’s School of Law.  “Mentors also commented that they felt rewarded by the positive impact they had on these enthusiastic students through the mentoring relationship.”

The OCFS mentor commitment is three in-person meetings with the student mentee over a six-month period of time. Mentors may also choose to invite their student to attend a work meeting together, or have the student shadow them at the office. 

Since 1972 the Orange County Financial Society, a non-profit voluntary association, has been providing a platform for discussing financial issues. Society members believe in promoting mutual cooperation in the financial and investment communities with a focus centered on the financial development and issues of Orange County, California. The Society, which is limited in size to 100 members, has six luncheon meetings each year.

Chapman University School of Law earlier this year launched a new Business Law Emphasis Program directed by Dr. Tom Campbell, the law school’s dean and professor of law and economics.  Prior to joining Chapman, Campbell was the dean of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Chapman is the only law school in the country whose dean is a former top 10 business school dean.

“Simple familiarity with the language of business will be of substantial help in representing business clients, either from the outside or in-house,” Campbell noted. “A Chapman law degree with a business law emphasis will also underline the collaborative nature of law and business, specifically, that lawyers might be seen as adding to the process of creating opportunity as the economy recovers.”

Those students wishing to obtain more intensive education in law and business have the option of participating in the joint JD/MBA program, offered in coordination with the Argyros School of Business at Chapman University.

For information about the business law programs at Chapman, please call 714-628-2500.

Consistently ranked among the top universities in the West, Chapman University provides a uniquely personalized and interdisciplinary educational experience to highly qualified students. Our programs encourage innovation, creativity and collaboration, and focus on developing global citizen-leaders who are distinctively prepared to improve their community and their world. For more information, visit www.chapman.edu.

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