Touche Ross. “I came in with a business sense, was made partner in five years, and was elected to the executive and management committees,” she says.
DUAL DEGREES OPEN IN-HOUSE DOORS When Sebastian was purchased by Wella, which was then bought by Procter & Gamble, Zaharek, rather than moving to Cincinnati, found a headhunter, showered her with hair products, and landed a job as senior corporate counsel for Downey Savings and Loan. Now he is division counsel of First American Corporation, the largest real estate information and title company in the United States, based in Orange County. “There is no question that my MBA played a part in getting in-house counsel jobs,” says Zaharek. “It said that I was comfortable reviewing financial statements and able to understand numbers more than the average lawyer. In these jobs, you have to understand accounting and finance.” An internship at Sun Microsystems after her first year of law school convinced Alabanza-Cary that she wanted to work in-house. She felt an MBA would make her more competitive. It did. Upon graduation, she was hired by Sun, where, over nine years she rose from contract attorney to counsel to senior counsel to assistant general counsel. When Sun announced its acquisition by Oracle in 2009, she was one of just five assistant general counsel out of a products legal department of 38. “It is difficult to say how much the MBA helped my career at Sun,” says Alabanza-Cary, “but I know it was a benefit. The extra knowledge, especially as a new in-house attorney, gave me confidence, as the MBA program taught me the multiple aspects that make up core parts of a business.”
Alabanza-Cary, who went on to work as IP transactions counsel at SAP, a provider of business software, says her MBA “was a good introduction to business, as I was a political science major and didn’t have a business background. The MBA gave me great tools as I began my in-house career.”
THE BLUE LANE Seven years into law firm practice, Jose made the move. After working with Intel Capital, on loan from Morrison and Foerster, he jumped to his current position as corporate counsel for contracts at Immersion, a San Jose technology company concentrating in “haptics,” touch technology that creates texture and feel in an electronic product (its president and CEO, Victor Viegas, holds undergrad and business degrees from SCU). Jose is grateful that his MBA gave him the chance to move from a firm to working in-house. “You know when you go to work each day that a new and unique problem will come up,” he says. “It makes life pretty exciting, especially when you are also growing a company.” In 2000, Kryder left Quantum to become general counsel of network applications at NetApp, a data storage and management company. “Because of my finance and law background, I had both the tax and the legal departments reporting to me, which is kind of unique.” “My financial background,” says Kryder, “has been one of the biggest pieces contributing to my success. If you have a legal background you focus mostly on risk, but the business background says, ‘it’s not about how much it costs, it’s about how much you make as a result.’ Without the financial background I wouldn’t be as good at that side of it.”
“Silicon Valley needs people who can speak both languages—law and business,” says Santa Clara Law Assistant Professor David Yosifon, faculty advisor for the J.D./MBA program. “Especially in times of economic crisis, clients want lawyers who can think about business.” Santa Clara Law Assistant Professor DAVID YOSIFON keith sutter
fall 2010 | santa clara law 9