Law Students State Their Case for SNC

St. Norbert College continues to be well-represented by alums in law schools around the country, including at some of the nation’s most prestigious. Backgrounds, specialties and aspirations vary, but many trace their preparedness and love for law to their time at SNC.

Catherine Nowaczyk ’19 is in her final semester at Georgetown University Law School. She says, “When I got to Georgetown, I really did feel that I had a leg up. The law courses at St. Norbert are taught exactly as first year classes in law school.

“They both use the Socratic method of teaching; you’re expected to know your stuff before you get into the classroom and participate in a dialogue with the professors and be questioned without prior warning.”

She specializes in corporate law and will return to the Midwest as a junior associate in the Chicago offices of law firm King & Spalding.

The law-school classroom can be intimidating. “You have to start from scratch and relearn how to think,” says University of Wisconsin law student Karen Suarez Jimenez ’20.

Suarez Jimenez left Oaxaca, Mexico, with her family at the age of three without documentation. She says, “I had not even expected college to be an option, being from an impoverished immigrant and indigenous family.”

She planned to teach high-school Spanish but changed majors junior year with the support of Charley Jacobs (Political Science) and multicultural student services director Bridgit Martin. Although not a United States citizen, she will be able to practice law under the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA.

“I could not have received a better preparation for law school than the guidance I received at St. Norbert. It helped me so much to overcome the hurdles that a first-generation law student faces: the impostor syndrome, the language barrier – I still translate things in my head.”

Suarez Jimenez works with the Immigrant Justice Clinic representing clients in immigration-related issues. She’s exploring specializing in indigenous law and contracts and torts. “So much is unknown, but a lot of doors are opening.”

Hunter Van Asten ’19 and Elizabeth Totzke ’19 are both in their final semester at Notre Dame Law School. Totzke says, “St. Norbert fostered my love for the law.” She has secured a position as clerk to two federal judges when she graduates while Van Asten has been hired as a litigation associate at the Milwaukee headquarters of Godfrey & Kahn.

They both represented SNC in competitive mock trials which Totzke says “helps you tease out aspects of the law” while encouraging collegiality and camaraderie.

March 17, 2022