Faculty address careers in public interest, policy and politics in recent panel

When Associate Dean Robert Saltzman entered law school, he had a clear career vision in mind — he wanted to work in politics.

Wooed by a big corporate law firm, he got a bit sidetracked after graduating. But within a year, Saltzman (pictured left) realized corporate law wasn’t for him, and he landed a job working for Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman.

“The point is to keep your eye on the ball when you’re here,” he told USC Law students at the fourth installment of the new Spring Faculty Panel Series, which focuses on professors’ areas of expertise and experiences. The series is hosted by the Dean of Students’ Office.

“Keep in touch with what brought ou here and what you’re interested in,” Saltzman said. “I knew exactly what I wanted to do in law school and that’s exactly what I didn’t do — until a year later.”

Saltzman joined Professors Niels Frenzen and Clare Pastore during the March 8 panel discussion, which focused on working in public interest, policy and politics.

Frenzen (pictured right), a top immigration law expert who runs USC’s Immigration Clinic, said he had the opposite experience of Saltzman when he entered law school. “I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do,” he said. “But I did know I didn’t want to work for a traditional law firm.”

Frenzen’s first job out of law school was working for a Haitian liberation theology priest representing Haitian boat people.

“It was tremendous and a rewarding six years,” he said. “I’m baffled when some people say that they want to work for a law firm for the experience. As a first-year lawyer, I was putting on witnesses on a regular basis. We had three cases that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s a fallacy that you won’t gain experience in non-traditional practices.”

Pastore, a litigator with the ACLU, gave some words of warning for when the big law firms show up on campus.  

“When law firms turn out in droves to recruit on campus, it can appear that few other kinds of jobs exist," she said. "Often, finding a job in the nonprofit, public interest or government sectors takes more work, but it’s well worth the effort if a big-firm job isn’t what you want.”

The next and final Spring Faculty Panel discussion will be on clinical opportunities, held on March 22 at 12:30 p.m. in Room 3. Lunch will be provided.