Meet the Board: Gabe Waddell

For the next couple of weeks, we'll be introducing (or re-introducing) the members of the OBCLAA's 2012-2013 Board. We're hoping that this will give you some insight into who's leading the OBCLAA and where we hope to take the Association over the next year. As always, if one of these bios gives you an idea for how YOU can get involved, don't hesitate to post a reply or contact individual Board members. Enjoy!

Today we'll be meeting Gabe Waddell, past President of the OBCLAA and now our returning College Liaison. In addition to his record as an excellent leader of the Alumni Association, Gabe and his wife Katie are best known in OBCLAA circles for ensuring that our annual Tahoe retreat boasts the best. food. ever. Thank you, Gabe and Katie, for making our meetings fun and for sharing your servants' hearts with us.

Gabe Waddell was admitted as an attorney in 2008 after graduating with class 03A.  Shortly after being admitted, he moved to Fresno and joined the Law Offices of Peter Fear. Most of his work consists of representing debtors in chapter 7, 11, 12, and 13 bankruptcies and related litigation, but he has been known to represent trustees and the occasional creditor's committee, as well.  Prior to beginning practice, Gabe worked with a wide variety of non-profit organizations, doing public policy, humanitarian, and legal advocacy work. Most recently, Gabe led an international humanitarian organization providing relief to widows and orphans in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. He has traveled widely, and continues to be active in humanitarian work.

Gabe and his wife Katie (also an OBCL grad!) met while working at Home School Legal Defense Association during law school. When he’s not at the office, you might find him searching for scenic views to photograph, reading a wide variety of literature, or cooking for friends.

Gabe is quick to admit that he tries to spread the word about OBCL at every opportunity.  His work in bankruptcy has given him a clear picture of the dangers of student debt, and he is constantly grateful for the fact that he could study law with OBCL, debt-free and with the opportunity to pursue his passion for ministry at the same time.  Gabe has served on the OBCLAA board in various capacities for the last four years, and is looking forward to being the link between school administration and the OBCLAA in the upcoming year.

Gabe's practice website: http://fresnobklaw.com/index.php/attorney-profiles

Meet the Board: Joanna Turnbull

For the next couple of weeks, we'll be introducing (or re-introducing) the members of the OBCLAA's 2012-2013 Board. We're hoping that this will give you some insight into who's leading the OBCLAA and where we hope to take the Association over the next year. As always, if one of these bios gives you an idea for how YOU can get involved, don't hesitate to post a reply or contact individual Board members. Enjoy!

Today we'll be meeting Joanna Turnbull, our Student Affairs Committee Chairman, and one of the newest additions to the California Bar (and to the Board). Welcome, Joanna!

My name is Joanna Turnbull, and I’m from a little town called Feilding in New Zealand (yes, LOTR was filmed here and no, we don’t have kangaroos)! I had always hoped to study law, and Oak Brook gave me the opportunity to begin my law degree with an international flavor after graduating early from high school. Oak Brook provided me with a solid legal education, grounded a Christian worldview, which prepared and enabled me to sit and pass the California Bar Exam—one of the toughest bar exams in the USA, if not the world. Through the juris doctor program, I was blessed with Godly faculty and friends and had so many amazing experiences and opportunities that I would not otherwise have had at other law schools.

I am honored and excited to be serving on the OBCL Alumni Association Board this year as Chairman of the Student Affairs Committee. I hope to use this position, in conjunction with my role as an OBCL teaching assistant, to promote various projects beneficial to current Oak Brook students, ensuring they receive the relevant support, assistance, encouragement and resources they need to succeed well in their studious endeavors.

Meet the Board: Jessica Mulder

For the next couple of weeks, we'll be introducing (or re-introducing) the members of the OBCLAA's 2012-2013 Board. We're hoping that this will give you some insight into who's leading the OBCLAA and where we hope to take the Association over the next year. As always, if one of these bios gives you an idea for how YOU can get involved, don't hesitate to post a reply or contact individual Board members. Enjoy!

Today we'll be meeting Jessica Mulder, our Paralegal Liaison and one of the new additions to the Board. Welcome, Jessica!

Jessica is a third generation Connecticut resident and is a home school graduate.  Passionate about singing, travel and volunteering with children, she also enjoys photography and being involved in missions.  She operated Mulder Home Services, organizing homes and offices, for seven years.  Jessica also worked as an administrative assistant from 2001 to 2007 at a church and private school.  She earned her undergrad from Excelsior College (Albany, NY) in 2006, graduating cum laud with a General Business degree.

Jessica’s life-long fascination with law and justice led her to change direction and get involved in the legal field.  In 2007 she enrolled in Oak Brook College of Law and Government Policy to take its intense one year paralegal program.  The effective and thorough training enabled her to sit for and pass the national Certified Legal Assistant exam in 2008.  Jessica was hired in 2009 by Perlstein, Sandler & McCracken, LLC as the paralegal to the senior partner.  This Farmington, CT based firm services the legal needs of over 350 condominium and homeowner associations throughout the state.  Among other duties, Jessica assists in preparing governing documents for associations, performs legal research pertaining to association governance, maintenance and finances, and reviews service contracts.

Meet the Board: Caleb Harlin

For the next couple of weeks, we'll be introducing (or re-introducing) the members of the OBCLAA's 2012-2013 Board. We're hoping that this will give you some insight into who's leading the OBCLAA and where we hope to take the Association over the next year. As always, if one of these bios gives you an idea for how YOU can get involved, don't hesitate to post a reply or contact individual Board members. Enjoy!

Today we'll be meeting Caleb Harlin, the Chairman of the National Association & Accreditation Committee. Caleb is continuing in this position after doing some impressive work in his 2011-2012 spearheading the research behind our interactive map of State Bar Rules. Thanks, Caleb!

My name is Caleb Harlin and I currently reside in Oklahoma.  I attended Oak Brook College of Law and graduated cum laude in 2009.  Following my graduation, I passed the California bar exam and was sworn in as an attorney in June of 2010.  Since that time, I have been actively practicing law in the areas of personal injury, business law, and civil litigation.  Due to my desire to practice law in Oklahoma, I have gone back to law school and am currently studying at the Oklahoma City University School of Law with the goal of setting up my own law practice in Oklahoma in the areas of personal injury, business law, civil litigation, and estate planning, with a focus on offering counsel to clients for more than simply legal needs.  In the meantime, I do contract research and writing for several law firms of various sizes.  I enjoy running and cycling, playing chess, and performing music on the piano and violin.  

My time at Oak Brook was very valuable in many ways.  First, it enabled me to study the law from a principled, Christian perspective.  Second, the flexibility of its method of study allowed me to invest a great deal of time in my family during my years in law school.  Third, it was affordable.  Finally, it adequately prepared me to pass the bar and ultimately to be successful in actual legal practice.  

Meet the Board: Emily Milnes

For the next couple of weeks, we'll be introducing (or re-introducing) the members of the OBCLAA's 2012-2013 Board. We're hoping that this will give you some insight into who's leading the OBCLAA and where we hope to take the Association over the next year. As always, if one of these bios gives you an idea for how YOU can get involved, don't hesitate to post a reply or contact individual Board members. Enjoy!

Today we'll be meeting Emily Milnes, the Student Liaison. After doing a great job in her 2011-2012 term, Emily was reelected for another term.

I am a third year JD student (09B), living in Washington state.  As a current student, I find it a real privilege to be studying at OBCL, where the emphasis in each class is that the field of law is the harvest field where God's redemptive work of justice and the ministry of the Gospel takes place.  

In the coming year, I'm looking forward to continuing as student liaison, working with current students, TAs, professors, and OBCL alumni, while organizing the First Year MBE Program and the Baby Bar Mentoring Program for first year students, as well as scheduling alumni-mentoring conference calls for second and third year students -- and if the mentoring program is something that sounds interesting to you, I'd love to have you join us!

• We're always looking for alumni who would be interested in hosting an MBE conference call with first year students.  (These calls review material from Torts, Criminal Law, and Contracts.  The set of MBE questions and the corresponding detailed answer guides are provided prior to the call -- all you have to do is show up!)

• And for each class, there is always a need for alumni who are currently practicing in a field of law and who would be interested in sharing their experiences by meeting with students via conference call during the semester to answer any questions that the students may have about the real-world practice of law for each particular subject that they're currently studying -- whether it's Immigration, Constitutional Law, Bankruptcy, etc.  (Retired OBCL exams and answer guides are available for most subjects, and these can be provided prior to these conference calls as well, if helpful.)

So whether it's working through a set of MBEs or expounding the rule against perpetuities, if working with current OBCL students by occasionally volunteering your time and experience is something that sounds interesting to you, please send me an email!  It's fun.  And we'd love to have you on board.  Thank you! 

Emily may be reached by email at:  milnese@gmail.com

OBCL Success by the Numbers

---Guest post by OBCL alum Elliot Ko

Emily's note: This week, the Sacramento Business Journal published a story on the Bar success rates of California law schools, showing that OBCL grads were not only competitive with by outperformed grads from some of CA's top-ranked law schools. We asked recent grad (and newly-minted California attorney) Elliot Ko to draft up a post with some more details on these numbers and Oak Brook's Bar pass rates. Thanks, Elliot!

When you think of the best law schools in the country, what schools come to mind? Yale? Stanford? Harvard? Indeed, these three schools top the U.S. News & World Report’s 2013 law school rankings, followed by Columbia University, the University of Chicago, New York University, UC Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, and the University of Michigan.

Elliot (07B) with classmates during Trial Advocacy

Recently-released results from the February 2012 California Bar Examination, however, contain the name of one law school whose graduates performed comparably to the graduates of these top tier-law schools---even though it wasn’t even ranked in the U.S. News & World Report’s latest law school rankings.

The California Bar is generally considered the most difficult bar examination in the country. It is a grueling ordeal which covers thirteen subjects, lasts three days, and costs more than $750 just to take. The stakes are high. The pressure is intense. And the pass rates are always predictably low. In fact, this past February, the pass rate was just 42.5%. Even among out-of-state attorneys who were allowed to take a shorter version of the exam because they were already licensed to practice law in another state, the pass rate was only 45.9%. Little wonder, then, that the list of lawyers who have failed the California Bar reads like a “Who’s Who” of famous dignitaries in California. (Current California governor Jerry Brown, for example, failed the California Bar twice before passing it on his third try. Former California governor Pete Wilson failed the California Bar three times before passing it on his fourth try, and current Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has yet to pass the California Bar after taking it four times.)

If you peruse the results of the February 2012 California Bar Examination, however, you will find the name of one law school with a surprisingly high pass rate: Oak Brook College of Law. Obviously, Oak Brook isn’t exactly a household name. But among those law schools who sent at least five first-time takers to the February 2012 California Bar Examination, Oak Brook’s 89% first-time pass rate was the second highest in the country—behind only Western State University College of Law and ahead of every other U.S. law school that sent more than ten total takers to the February 2012 California Bar Examination, including #7 ranked UC Berkeley (71%), #10 ranked University of Michigan (80%), #13 ranked Georgetown University (77%), #15 ranked U.C.L.A (71%), #18 ranked U.S.C. (57%), #26 ranked Arizona State (50%), #29 ranked Fordham University (71%), and #49 ranked Pepperdine University (71%). In fact, if you add law schools with less than five first-time takers into the mix, Oak Brook’s first-time pass rate actually  topped that of #2 ranked Stanford Law School (75%), #20 ranked George Washington University (75%), #26 ranked Boston University (75%), and #29 ranked U.C.–Davis (50%). And if you factor in repeat takers, Oak Brook’s 63% overall pass rate is still good enough to place it in eleventh place in the country.

This isn’t the first time Oak Brook’s graduates have done well on the California Bar Examination. So what makes them so successful? Is it Oak Brook’s selective admissions policy? Not really. In fact, unlike most law schools, Oak Brook doesn’t even weed out applicants based on their LSAT scores. And it doesn’t even have a brick-and-mortar campus of its own. Instead, once a year, its students meet at a rented facility for a school-wide conference. The rest of the year, its tightly knit student body study on their own, upload their assignments online, and communicate with each other regularly via phone calls, text messages, and instant messages. But the differences don’t stop there. For example, Oak Brook’s student body is largely comprised of young homeschool graduates and thirty- to fifty-year-old men and women embarking on their second or third careers. Furthermore, unlike most top-tier law schools that charge anywhere from $40,000 to $50,000 in tuition every year, Oak Brook charges only $4,000 in tuition every year, with most of its professors receiving the most minimal of salaries in order to keep the school’s expenses low. And as if all this wasn’t already enough to make this school unique, Oak Brook is an unabashedly Christian school whose website states that its mission “is to train individuals who desire to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ through service as advocates of truth, counselors of reconciliation, and ministers of justice in the fields of law and government policy.”

In our status-obsessed society, it’s good to know you don’t have to have the most money or go to the most prestigious school in order to have a successful career. What you’re made of, who you live for, and how hard you are willing to work still matters more than anything else in the world.

Cal Bar pass rates for February, 2012: http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/4/documents/Statistics/FEBRUARY2012STATS.pdf

Oak Brook Graduates Release Critically Acclaimed New Book

Oak Brook graduates Bob Renaud and Lael Weinberger have written a new book designed to inform believers of the intersection between church discipline and freedom of religion. A Tale of Two Governments: Church Discipline, The Courts, and the Separation of Church and State is already available online at Amazon and other retail outlets.

R.C. Sproul, Jr. says this in praise of their work: “A Tale of Two Governments, with wisdom and both legal and biblical fidelity, affirms the authority of both church and state, while demonstrating the lordship of Christ over all things. Insightful, practical and sound.”  

A Tale of Two Governments provides a valuable resource for pastors, church leaders, lawyers, and others concerned about the freedom to practice religion in an increasingly intrusive society. Bob and Lael have provided a valuable service by investigating carefully an intersection of an area of law and a role of the church rarely examined in a scholarly and thoughtful way.

To read more comments on A Tale of Two Governments from respected church leaders like John MacArthur and George Grant, visit the book's official website. Or visit the book's Amazon page to pick it up in paperback or Kindle format.

Tahoe 2012: OBCL alum Nathan DeLadurantey on Stephen Fairley

Here's what OBCL alum and Wisconsin bankruptcy attorney Nathan DeLadurantey has to say about Stephen Fairley's marketing presentations:

Nathan and wife Jeanine

Five years ago, I attended a conference on attorney marketing that has defined my entire legal practice. One of the keynote speakers was Stephen Fairley.

A question that Stephen posed to the group was whether we were building a "law practice" or a "law business."  He then shared with the group a variety of methods, policies and approaches to employ effective marketing strategies to create a sustainable business.  I left that conference with a list of practical tasks to actually create an effective marketing strategy for my practice.  I still have the original list in my desk - and I still use it.

Since that time, I have been blessed with a practice (www.dela-law.com) that has become one of the larger bankruptcy firms here in Milwaukee.  I am fortunate enough to work with (soon-to-be) three full time associate attorneys (all OBCL grads!), four excellent legal assistants, and provide a comfortable living for my family. 

I started my practice because I want to support important charity and political causes while providing for my family.  The principles of marketing and of building a firm based on solid reputation, relationships, and customer service that Stephen Fairley teaches will help attorneys with the same purpose as mine reach their goals.  I am excited to have Stephen come to Tahoe and know he can have a great impact on the success of Oak Brook graduates.

(Haven't registered yet? Click here to access the registration form! See you in Tahoe!!!)

Tahoe 2012: OBCL alum Mark Bigger on Stephen Fairley

Here's what OBCL grad and Bakersfield criminal law attorney Mark Bigger has to say about Stephen Fairley's marketing presentations:

I’ve just started the process of implementing Stephen Fairley’s principles in my practice and I am already seeing great results. To build a practice that you can control and turn into an asset rather than just a place where you work is an important part of Stephen’s philosophy. I am excited that Stephen is willing to share with OBCL grads in Tahoe.

Tahoe 2012: OBCLAA hosts Stephen Fairley

This year, for the first time ever, the OBCLAA is pleased to announce that we have a guest speaker for the annual alumni weekend. 

We've invited small-firm marketing expert Stephen Fairley of the Rainmaker Institute to address our members---and he's accepted!

The topics for Stephen's presentation are...

Hour 1: how to double your referral base in six months

Hour 2: how to develop a good social media marketing plan

Both of these sessions will benefit not only those who can turn around and apply the principles to their own firms, but any alumnus or student who would like some ideas for helping OBCL to succeed in the coming years.

We couldn't be more excited to welcome Stephen Fairley to our meeting. Best of all, there will be no additional fee to attend these sessions---it's all included in your conference registration (speaking of which, don't forget to register today!!!).

See you in Tahoe!