Bell Nunnally/UNTD Law "Business Law Forum" Takeaways Featured on The Texas Lawbook

Takeaways from Bell Nunnally’s involvement with and sponsorship of the 2021-2022 University of North Texas Dallas College of Law “Business Law Forum” are featured in The Texas Lawbook article “Bell Nunnally’s UNTD Business Law Forum Seeks to Provide Real World View of Business Law, Generate Dialogue with Law School Students.”

The piece is a Q+A with Partner Saba S. Syed and recent-Partner Peter J. Kosydar (now assistant general counsel at ISN). Formation of the UNTD/Bell Nunnally partnership and program guidance is credited to Partner William A. “Trey” DeLoach, III.

Syed and Kosydar consider a wide range of topics covered in the Business Law Forum, including:

• The role of mentorship in business law, and building generation-bridging relationships with clients rooted in trust
• The interdisciplinary aspects of business law – from finance to tax to IP and legal – and how to help newly minted attorneys understand the fuller picture
• Business law as a worthy competitor to the world of MBA managers – and how the law offers greater entrepreneurial opportunities and room for growth
• Business law as an empowerment tool, for diverse attorneys and diverse businesses they serve
• The importance of firm senior leaders actively sharing wisdom and preaching the gospel of business law, and why some firms fail to do so.

Syed, on the role of mentorship in business law commented:

Trust is a cornerstone for every relationship, and especially for professional relationships. Critical components of trust include a person’s reliability, honesty, dependability and, most importantly, that another person is looking out for your best interest.

Trust is foundational for mentoring because you may have individuals who are 20 or 30 years into their careers helping a more junior person. The act of mentoring requires a level of selflessness by the more senior attorney. The senior attorneys are investing in junior attorneys and sharing knowledge and information that the junior attorneys may not be able to readily obtain on their own.

Kosydar, on the role of senior law firm leaders sharing their wisdom observed:

It is incredibly important for the senior leaders to share their wisdom because the reality is every different transaction you work on is a new experience that you gain something from, and that sort of perspective does not come from a book. We have partners here that have been practicing for 30 to 40 years, and all of the different experiences that they have had, and the wide range of transactions that they have seen, form an incredible knowledge base for younger attorneys to tap.

Syed closed the piece by noting:

It takes a “we” versus “me” environment and approach for [a] free flow of information and questions to happen.

To read the full article, please click here.