Two Rutgers Law students whose business law interests range from entrepreneurship in the technology field to corporate law were awarded scholarships from the Association of Corporate Counsel New Jersey Chapter.

Jon Garfield ’19 and Heather O’Brien ’19 received the scholarships this spring after being selected through a competitive process that included a faculty review of their grades, internships, extracurricular activities, courses taken, and employment experiences in addition to references.

The Center for Corporate Law and Governance – co-directed by Professors Douglas Eakeley and Arthur Laby- administered the scholarships.

Garfield, who attends law school in Newark, has been Associate Editor for the Rutgers Law Record and was an intern with Superior Court Judge Dennis Carey and U.S. District Court Judge Brian Martinotti. As a student in the JD/MBA program, Garfield is currently working on his MBA at Rutgers Business School concentrating on finance.

“I always knew I wanted to go to law school because I was surrounded by the law growing up, as my father is an alumnus from Rutgers Law – Camden,” he said. “I chose Rutgers because of the excellent location and the JD/MBA program.”

Garfield said he’s always been interested in business law and entrepreneurship, especially in the technology field. He’s gotten to explore his interest as a summer intern at CBXMarket, a fin-tech company, where he worked as an intern in the legal department, concentrating in the field of Blockchain Technology. Previously, he was a legal intern with Davis, Saperstein, and Salomon Sky Capital America.

After graduation, Garfield will continue working with CBXMarket on a start-up project, bringing a blockchain-based fixed-income solution, Bond.One to market. 

O’Brien, who attends law school in Camden, said she was inspired to pursue a career in corporate law after taking a business organizations course with Professor Laby. “I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of interacting with business clients to negotiate deals and working proactively to help them achieve their goals,” she said.

While at law school, O’Brien serves as an Articles Editor on the Rutgers Law Review, and is part of the Mediation Pro Bono Project and the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. She also does research for Professor Jacob Hale Russell on corporate law issues.

After graduation, she will become an associate at Schulte Roth & Zabel in New York City, where she spent last summer as a summer associate. During her 1L summer, she was a judicial intern for U.S. District Court Judge Michael Shipp. 

She said Rutgers Law provides “a number of unique benefits for a student pursuing business law. We have access to two of the largest legal markets, Philadelphia and New York, which gives us twice as many networking opportunities. Transactional experience is difficult to obtain in law school, but Rutgers offers a wide range of corporate law skills classes which give valuable hands on experience.” 

Both scholarship winners expressed their gratitude in being chosen.