Jasmin French, Class of 2007
Undergraduate: Duke University
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Jasmin French, who joined DLA Piper as an associate in the firm's corporate group after her graduation in May 2007, became interested in practicing corporate law while working at Kimberly Clark, where she spent three years after graduating from Duke. "I encourage people to work at least a year before going to law school to gain some insight and to distil their interest in the law, and possibly another year to learn what your strengths are and how you want to apply them," she says. "I started off knowing professional school was in the plan - I thought I'd go back for an M.B.A. But when I got enmeshed in the company, I found that the people who were making the key decisions were the attorneys."
With the encouragement of a Kimberly Clark senior executive who became a mentor, Jasmin applied to law schools. She chose Vanderbilt because of its success in placing graduates throughout the country, its strong Law and Business Program, and because she noticed that "VU had high minority enrollment among top law schools."
At Vanderbilt, Jasmin was impressed with resources available to all law students.She credits the law school's Career Services department with alerting her to an annual holiday party hosted by minority attorneys from large firms. "My home is in Indianapolis, and the party was in Chicago," she says. "I drove up for that event, met people from DLA Piper, and kept in touch with them."
As a summer associate in 2006, Jasmin got an on-the-job lesson in the personal consequences of international politics as well as substantive corporate experience. She is fluent in French and was asked to assist in a pro bono matter by translating correspondence to a Togolese national seeking to remain in the United States as a political refugee. "The Togolese government was trying to extradite him," she recalls. "Togo is a French-speaking African country, and the letters were from his wife, describing the family's harassment by militants. Their house had been burned and even the children were assaulted," she recalls. Jasmin's translations were used to verify that the client's life would be in danger if he returned to Togo. "Law is a great career if you want to impact people's lives," she says.
