BY S U S A N VO G E L
PH OTO S B Y C H A R L E S BARRY
LEADING THE CLASS Three outstanding graduates of the Class of 2008
What a Difference a Professor Makes: Scott Mangum ’08 Six years ago, Scott Mangum was a community college student with a less-than-stellar high school academic record. On May 17 of this year, he received Santa Clara Law’s Inez Mabie Award. Provided by the Mabie Family Foundation, the award is given to “the graduating student who best represents the type of student Santa Clara University School of Law is most proud to graduate by reason of demonstrated qualities of scholarship, community leadership, and a sense of professional responsibility.” You won’t learn about this, or his other academic achievements, from Mangum, however. He understates his success, for instance, saying he graduated in the top 10 percent of his law school class (which is true, though it is also true that he was in the top two percent). He keeps his other honors equally at bay. You’ll have to ask for his resume to learn that he received no fewer than 16 honors in law school, from being named editor-in-chief of the Law Review, to receiving eight CALI and Witkin awards for earning the top grade in his first-year classes. He won Best Brief and Best Oral Advocate awards in moot court competitions, won the Gerald E. Moore Moot Court Competition and Scholarship, and received the Emery Merit Scholarship (awarded for overall academic excellence) for all three years of law school. While in high school in Danville, Mangum says he was interested mostly in sports and having fun. He spent two years at Diablo Valley College before transferring to UCLA. It was there that the spark of an interest in history burst into a full-on love, thanks to controversial professor, Mary Corey, whose cultural history courses challenged the conservative views he had been exposed to growing up. Mangum graduated from UCLA with a 4.0 GPA. Sticking with history for graduate school was a natural choice—his mother studied history extensively in college and his brother has a Ph.D. in 20 santa clara law fall 2008
the subject. But volunteering at the Western Law Center for Disability Rights showed him the power of the law. While helping people with cancer fight workplace discrimination, he saw “the law’s capacity to effect positive social change and really help people on a personal level,” he says. Mangum credits his success in law school to two things: his history background, which gave him the ability to see the law in the context of public policy, not just as a bunch of rules to memorize, and the Santa Clara Law professors who made the law interesting. He credits Professor Philip Jimenez in particular for making the law fun and relevant as well as for piquing his interest in international law. With Jimenez’s encouragement, Mangum, who had never been outside the U.S., competed for and won the Gerald E. Moore Scholarship, which paid for his summer program in Korea. His exceptional grades “just kind of happened as a result of taking interest in what I was doing,” he says. He does admit that his interest in the law might be better characterized as a passion. “I feel unique in the amount of enjoyment I get from the law,” he says. In spite of his success in honors moot court, Mangum insists he’s “not wired for litigation,” and will be joining the transactional department of the Boston firm of Ropes & Gray in its San Francisco office, working on matters relating to health care law, corporate governance and compliance, investment, mergers and acquisitions, international law, licensing agreements, and corporate structuring. To students who haven’t yet found something they love, Mangum advises “keep an open mind, read everything you can get your hands on, and think about how various subjects interrelate. By working or studying in one field, you can have a great impact on a multitude of areas.” Most importantly, he adds, “I would tell students to find something that makes them happy, whether it be in academics or not.”