Lawyer Diaries: Former Governor

The following Lawyer Diary comes in the form of an interview with Jennifer Granholm, a former Governor of Michigan. This interview is excerpted from Learning From Precedent.

Bloch: What was the worst part about being at Harvard Law?

Granholm: I wouldn’t call it the worst, but there’s one experience that was definitely the most tense.  Back in the mid-80’s, I was part of a group that was protesting Harvard’s business investments in South Africa. [At that time, South Africa was racially segregated under Apartheid]. We did things like camp out in front of Harvard President Derek Bok’s house and chant, “Derek Bok, get the word. This is not Johannesburg!”    

When the South African ambassador came to speak on campus one day, a few members of the group protested by lying down in front of his vehicle and blocking it from moving forward. I didn’t lie down in the street with them, but because I was a part of the group, I was brought in front of the disciplinary board to see whether or not I should be kicked out of school.

For me, coming from a family with very humble roots, it was like, “I’ll get kicked out of Harvard for this.” But in the end, we were represented in front of the board by one of the law professors who was an esteemed criminal defense lawyer. He got us out of trouble. I ended up getting a note about the incident put in my file, but thankfully I didn’t get kicked out.

Bloch: Did that incident launch your interest in politics? When did you first think about running for office?

Granholm: I’ve always been totally interested in politics and in changing the world, but I never thought of myself as running for office. In fact, my husband, Dan, was the one interested in running for office, and we  actually moved back to Michigan to give him a chance to do that. Before we got married, the priest who prepared us asked what we wanted to do when we were older. We told him that Dan wanted to go into politics, and I wanted to change the world by being a civil rights lawyer. The priest asked him, “Well what if the party comes to Jennifer? What if there’s an open seat for her?” And Dan said, “I’d support her 100%.” And he did.

Bloch: While you were governor, was there any one defining moment that encompassed all the skills that you learned in law school?

Granholm: There’s not just one moment, it’s all the time. For example, the first month I was in office, Michigan was in the midst of a massive budget crisis. Usually the budget director goes in front of the legislature  alone to present the budget. However, to make the case for the cuts that I was proposing, I also went before the legislature. The ability to feel comfortable doing that—negotiating with the legislature, drafting legislation, you name it—emerged on day one on the job and all evolved from my experiences in law school.

Bloch: Looking back, from the clerkship to Attorney General to Governor, how did your law degree help you in your career path?

Granholm: Having a foundation in which people cannot attack your qualifications or your education is of prime importance. Had I not had my credentials from Harvard Law, I likely wouldn’t have been approached to run for Attorney General. That unassailable credential is extremely important, especially for a young woman.

Law school gives you the ability to question, to speak truth to power, and to feel comfortable doing the research for your case. Law school’s encouragement of Socratic dialogue and thinking through problems is phenomenal training for any path, and certainly great for politics.

When I think of my colleagues at Harvard, Eliot Spitzer for example, it’s clear that having people with great analytical minds argue and debate school work with you sets you up ideally in running for office. I debated all the time in law school, and that skill helped me immensely when I was debating an opponent at the next podium or delivering a speech to a crowd. Those skills were honed in my law school training.

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Jennifer Granholm served as the 47th Governor of Michigan (D) from 2003 – 2011. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (1984), and she received her Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School (1987) where she served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She clerked for U.S. Judge Damon Keith on the Sixth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, was Michigan’s Attorney General from 1999 – 2003, and is now the host of The War Room with Jennifer Granholm on Current TV. She is also a Distinguished Practitioner of Law and Public Policy at UC Berkeley’s School of Law and Goldman School of Public Policy.