Duncan Campbell has made a fortune in the business world, but
he spends much of his time and money helping children in need.
Holly Smith is an attorney caught up in one of the nation’s most
pressing public policy issues. Kenji Sugahara is his own boss at
a computer software business he co-founded while still a college
student.
These three individuals may seem to have little in common, but
they do share one important piece of their history as graduates of
the University School of Law.
And each is proof that a law degree today comes with no set
definition of how it can be used.
The oldest of the three, Campbell, graduated from the law school
in 1973, but the experience that still inspires much of his work
today began long before that, while he was a child growing up in
inner-city Portland.
He grew up in a poor family supported by welfare, but even as a
student he knew that someday he would be successful.
“I had a dream and a vision of where I wanted to go,” he said. “And
I worked hard to get there.”
He founded the Timber Investment Firm, a Portland-based
company that raises money from pension firms to acquire forests
for long-term investments.
Since then, the company he started has grown into a $2 billion
corporation.
And as a successful businessman, Campbell said he believes he
has an obligation to give back to the community — especially
children growing up in situations similar to his own childhood.
“If you’re fortunate to have resources, you’re called to share them,”
he said.
He has founded four organizations serving children, including a
mentor program aimed at helping children who are at most at risk
in society. Called Friends of the Children, the program is unique
because the mentors involved are paid professionals who are
paired with children in the first grade and stay with them through
high school, he said. By next year, the program will serve nearly
500 children in nine cities nationwide.
The first children to participate are now sophomores in high
school, and with nearly all of them still in school, Campbell
considers the program a success. Knowing that he has made a
difference in their lives gives him a sense of fulfillment as well, he
said.
“It’s a wonderful thing to help these children,” he said. “It fills part of
your soul.”
Attorney Holly Smith also works with people to share resources,
but energy is the resource she helps to distribute.
Smith, who graduated in 1999, originally went to work for the
Washington, D.C., office of Davis Wright Tremaine, which
represents, among other large corporations, Starbucks and
Rolling Stone Magazine, as a telecommunications lawyer.
But when concerns about an impending U.S. energy crisis began
heating up, the firm began adding more lawyers to handle new
energy accounts. The firm represents many independent power
producers in order to help them sell their product on the wholesale
market.
Smith, one of those asked to join the group, said while the move
was unexpected, energy law is an exciting field to be in, and an
important one because the work her firm and others are doing
allows more power sources to be made available to those who
need them.
The field is also receiving national attention. Last week, Smith’s
law firm was featured in a Wall Street Journal article on the
growing energy law practice.
And while Smith hopes to return to telecommunications law in the
future, she said her experience shows the need for law school
graduates to be ready for whatever direction their career may take
them.
“I never thought I’d be an energy lawyer,” she said. “But now I am.”
Being transferred to another department is one thing that
Sugahara doesn’t need to worry about. As the co-founder of the
computer software company Counterclaim, an electronic filing
service for courts and law firms, Sugahara is his own boss.
Sugahara and classmate Shogun Naidoo began the business in
1999, while Sugahara was still in law school. And as with any new
business, he said, there were constant concerns over whether
they were going to make it.
“At first it’s always difficult, because you’re wondering, ‘Am I going
to make money, am I going to eat?’” he said.
Even more than that, he said, he worried that they might not have
the money to pay their employees.
But unlike other technology firms, Sugahara said, Counterclaim
has not been hurt by the downturn in the economy because the
legal system is no less busy than it was before.
And despite the risks, Sughara said, he’s glad to be in a position
where he’s in charge of his future.
“There’s a lot of ups and downs,” he said. “But the thing about it is,
you have control over what you do.”