From Convenience Stores to Courtrooms: How Elias Fanous Conquered Law School

Welcome to Victors in Grad School, where we delve into the intricate journeys of students, alumni, and experts navigating the rigorous paths of graduate education. Each episode captures the essence of what it means to strive for and achieve success in grad school. This week, we were thrilled to have Elias Fanous, an attorney based in Flint, join us to share his unique journey from undergraduate studies to a flourishing legal career.

Finding That Initial Spark

During his time at the University of Michigan Flint, Elias always had law school at the back of his mind. Nonetheless, like many students, he found himself meandering through core classes, uncertain of the next steps. His journey took a pivotal turn when he encountered Dr. Albert Price in a Constitutional Law prep course. This class not only rekindled his interest in law but also clarified his career aspirations. Thanks to the unwavering support from Dr. Price and other faculty members like Dr. Joseph Rami and Derwin Monroe, Elias started contemplating graduate school more seriously.

Navigating Post-Undergraduate Uncertainty

Post-graduation, Elias opted to work in his family’s convenience store business. However, the desire to pursue law reemerged. The tipping point came one late night during a grueling third shift. Tired and seeking more significant opportunities, Elias decided to apply to Cooley Law School. The decision wasn’t immediate or easy due to concerns about potential debt and lifestyle changes. Nevertheless, seeing his cousin Alexandra’s success as a Cooley graduate validated his choice.

The Grad School Transition

The Initial Hurdles

Transitioning into law school wasn’t a walk in the park. Elias soon realized that his undergraduate study techniques wouldn’t suffice. The rigorous coursework and Socratic teaching method at Cooley demanded a change in his approach towards studying. It was a humbling experience, especially when he found himself unprepared for impromptu questions in class.

Developing Effective Study Strategies

Elias began to tweak his learning style each semester, taking advantage of tutorials, class outlines, and connecting with upper-level students. The continuous adjustments and improved study techniques eventually culminated in consistently better grades. "If I would have studied like this during undergrad, my GPA would have been much higher," he reflects.

Finding Leadership and Balance

Embracing Leadership Roles

In addition to academics, Elias immersed himself in the student community. He started as a senator in the Student Bar Association, gradually moving up to become the Student Body President for the Lansing campus. Engaging with diverse student leaders and faculty helped him develop problem-solving skills and a solid professional network.

The Impact on Career

While leading various campus initiatives, Elias honed his ability to balance responsibilities, a skill that proved crucial in his legal career. The relationships built during these times opened doors in his professional life, including landing his first office space through connections made via Dean Don LaDuke. These experiences taught Elias to handle practical aspects of law efficiently, preparing him for the demands of a legal career.

The Real-World Application of Education

Professional Success and Community

Impact Today, Elias is entrenched in the legal community as a public defender and a burgeoning leader within the County Bar Association. He credits his law school experiences, especially the leadership roles, for equipping him with necessary tools to build a thriving practice. More importantly, Elias has carried forward the ethos of helping others, a lesson he learned from mentors in Genesee County.

Overcoming Personal Trials

Elias’s career is also marked by personal resilience. The support from his professional community was instrumental when he faced tragic personal loss during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. This collective camaraderie reaffirmed the importance of building strong, supportive networks.

Advice for Future Grad Students

Research and Goals

Elias emphasizes the importance of researching potential graduate schools thoroughly. Prospective students should look into the faculty's accomplishments, the school's reputation, and how well it aligns with their career goals. He advises making a comprehensive goal list to ascertain if a particular program meets their ambitions.

Cultivating Relationships

Building relationships with faculty and peers can make a significant difference. As Elias’s story illustrates, these connections can offer invaluable support and professional opportunities.

Elias Fanous’s journey underscores the multifaceted experience of graduate school. It’s about embracing change, cultivating relationships, and balancing various responsibilities. His story is a testament to the transformative power of education and community support, offering inspiration for current and future grad students aiming to carve out their paths in the professional world.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the victors in grad school, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]:
Welcome back to Victor's in Grad School. I'm your host, doctor Christopher Lewis, director of graduate programs at the University of Michigan Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. You know, every week, I love being able to talk to you about the journey that you're on. And I call it a journey because it is a journey. You may be at the very beginning just starting to think about, hey, do I wanna do this graduate school thing? You might be a little bit further along. You might have that application in your hands and sweating it a little bit, trying to figure out, am I gonna actually submit it? Or maybe you did submit it, and you're waiting on an answer. And you're trying to figure out, okay.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:44]:
What do I have to do next? What do I have to do to prepare myself for this? What do I have to do once I'm in graduate school? And this podcast is here for you because every week, I love being able to talk to you, to work with you, to help you, to be able to identify things that you can do to find success in the upcoming graduate school journey that you're going to be on. And that's why every week I bring you different guests, different people that have had different experiences, that have gone through that graduate school experience and have been successful in that experience. And in the end, they've gotten their degree. They're out in they're out and being successful in that in that career that they wanted to get into, And they're here to help you, to give you some tools for that toolbox and help you to be able to know what you can do now to prepare yourself well. This week, we got another great guest with us. Elias Fanous is with us today. And Elias is a attorney in the Flint area working in a number of different areas. We'll talk a little bit about some of the work that he's done.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:48]:
He ended up getting his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan Flint and then went on to get his law degree at Cooley Law School. Really excited to have him here to talk about his experience and to share that experience with you. Elias, thanks so much for being here today.

Elias Fanous [00:02:03]:
Oh, thanks for having me. It's been I know we've been trying to do this for quite some time, so finally glad to be able to sit down and talk to you about my journey. Well, the

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:10]:
first thing that I always love to do is turn the clock back in time. And I know you did your undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, Flint. And at some point in that journey, you made a decision. You made a decision that you wanted to go on from your undergraduate degree and go to law school. Talk to me about that. And what made you decide that you wanted to go to graduate school?

Elias Fanous [00:02:29]:
I always had in the back of my mind law school. It was always something I wanted to do or thought I wanted to do. But when I got to U of M, Flint, I guess I was kinda like every student. You're not really sure what you're doing. You're taking your core classes and trying to figure out, okay, what's the next step for me? I was very fortunate. I knew I was gonna be a political science major, and I had probably, in my opinion, the best adviser that someone could have, especially at that time, and that was doctor Albert Price. And I believe he's retired now, but I must've had probably 4 or 5 classes with him. But in his Con Law prep course or however you wanna call it, that's when it really started clicking.

Elias Fanous [00:03:06]:
You know, we're going through these monumental supreme court cases from the very beginning up until actually, we also talked because at that time, we had the 2,000 president election, the Chad Gate, if you will, Al Gore and president Bush. And we also saw a flip in the leadership of the Supreme Court with Justice Roberts being named as chief, calling the death of justice Rehnquist. But I think I would say it was in that class that really kinda reignited the fire. Let's go to law school. That's the goal. And in talking with Doctor. Price, and also had other faculty members that I talked to, doctor Joseph Rami in the history department, and then Derwin Monroe in the political science department as well, really kinda helped drive that next step. It didn't happen right away, but they definitely helped me get to that point.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:53]:
As you said, it didn't happen right away. So you graduated from your undergraduate experience and you at some point, few years out, you make a decision. You make a decision, it's time. It's time to take that LSAT. It's time to go further, and it's time to start looking at law schools. And you end up attending Cooley Law School. So talk to me about that process for yourself. How did you end up finally deciding this is the time? But 2, how did you decide out of all of the law schools across the nation that you wanted to attend Cooley Law School?

Elias Fanous [00:04:26]:
Sure. So, you know, I took the LSAT. I think it was the fall of my senior year at U of M Flint or my last semester or or whatnot, and and got my score back. It wasn't the best score in the world, but it wasn't the worst score in the world. I graduated, and I went immediately into work with my family. We had convenience stores. In fact, my dad still runs a convenience store. And I did that for a couple of years, and I kept going back in my head as do I wanna take on the debt? Because fortunate for me, when I was at U of M Flint, it wasn't as expensive as it is now.

Elias Fanous [00:04:55]:
So I was able to pay my way through school in the early 2000. And so the big the big hurdle for me was, a, do I want that debt? Do I want that life? So I was going back and forth. I was working, and I think it was just somebody had called in sick, and I ended up having to work 3rd shift that night. So I'd already worked from 3 to 11, and I had to work from 11 to 7. And I said, you know what? This is enough is enough. It was in November. So went online and put in an application to Cooley, and I chose Cooley. That was the school I wanted to go to.

Elias Fanous [00:05:27]:
A, I didn't have the best grades in the whole wide world when I was at U of M Flint, and that was just because I really didn't apply myself. And I'll tell you why I feel that way later. But my cousin, Alexandra, had gone to Cooley, and she had graduated and was already being successful. So I was like, woah, wait a minute. And at that time, Cooley was known as a school that makes you a lawyer, not teaches you the law, but prepares you to to actually practice law. So I applied and it was it was like December 26 or 27. It was right after Christmas. I got an email saying I had been accepted, and I could start in January 2009.

Elias Fanous [00:06:04]:
So it took me about 4 days to find an apartment and start the financial paperwork. But, yeah, Cooley was where I wanted to go because I had family that had gone there, and I saw the product that Cooley was putting out at that time. And to me, that was really important because I wanted to learn to be a lawyer, not just learn the law.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:20]:
Now I know you said that in your undergrad, you weren't happy with how you did as a student and how much you put into your education to be able to get out what you got out of it. And as you make that transition into any graduate program, it is a transition because you're taught in one way as an undergraduate student. And especially when you leave an undergraduate degree, you go out for a couple of years. You and then you have to get your mind back into school and figure out what not only it means to get back into school, but also what it means to start in a completely different way of learning. So talk to me about that transition for yourself because you were able to make that transition into law school. What did you have to do to set yourself up for success in that transition? And what did you have to do to maintain that success as you went through all of the 3 years in law school?

Elias Fanous [00:07:19]:
So in undergrad, I just you would show up to class, listen to somebody lecture, you'd take some notes, and then you hope for the best if you will. That's kinda how I approached undergrad. I was very active at U of M Flint, especially with the Greek community. I was president of my fraternity at U of at the University of Michigan Flint twice, actually, and so I didn't focus as much on my studies. I did enough to get by. I got good grades. It just wasn't to where my standard should have been. And it was more of I don't wanna say I wasn't pushed to get to where I needed to be, but I didn't have the enthusiasm, I guess, is the way to kinda put it where okay.

Elias Fanous [00:07:53]:
I went to class. I took notes and lectures, and I was already thinking, what am I gonna do tonight? What am I what's going on? When I got to law school, Cooley immediately kinda became readily available that or readily kinda knowledgeable that you gotta do something different. You can't just go and take notes and expect to to succeed. I had a intro to law class that, at the time, had everyone take, and it was a great wake up call because you try and study the way you used to study, and it just it wasn't enough. And then we had a Socratic method in law school where you get assigned these readings, you gotta do them, and then you just kinda sometimes kinda duck behind your laptop and pray the teacher doesn't pick on you to to recite a case. And, I mean, right away, I I was called on in my contract scores. 1st year, professor Otto Stockmeyer, who's like a contracts guru, and it was humbling. You think you know it, and then you don't really know it, and you don't really get what they're trying to give you out of the case law.

Elias Fanous [00:08:45]:
And then it kinda shifted my focus. Alright. Let's really prepare. Let's really understand what the material is. And if you don't understand something, go get assistance. And then at that time, the student bar association at Cooley, which I was ultimately involved in, since how you and I had met, had these class outlines that you could buy, and there was tutorials and tutors. So I took advantage of that, those sort of things. And then I wanted to be a part of different organizations at Cooley and wanted to be a leader.

Elias Fanous [00:09:12]:
I was a leader in undergrad with my fraternity in the Greek life, but I wasn't really a leader in the student body, if that makes sense. And I wanted to be that. And I knew that if I was gonna be successful in law school and do that, I had to make sure I maintained my grades and and got good grades. And I made a deal with my cousin, Alex, who, like I told you before, she had graduated earlier. He said, you can't do any of that stuff if you don't get good grades. So that 1st semester, the 1st term at law school, I kinda hunkered down, made sure I I was able to pull passing grades because you hear all the horror stories. You spend all this money in your 1st term, term at law school and 35% of the classes vanished after week 6 of the 2nd term when the grades finally get posted. So once I got decent grades that first term, I was able to kinda use what I had learned that 1st semester and then tweak my learning style to get better.

Elias Fanous [00:10:04]:
And every semester, I would take what I learned and the good and the bad and the ugly because there are ugly times too and tweak it. And ultimately, my grades started going up higher than they've ever been before. And I thought to myself, I would have studied like this at undergrad. I would have had a much better GPA and probably would have gone maybe to a different school, but everything happens for a reason and Cooley truly prepared me. I know there's a lot of negative stuff nowadays about the law school. But when I was there, and I'll call it the heyday of Cooley because that's what it was. Let's be honest. It was a great place to learn and a great place to prepare yourself to be a lawyer.

Elias Fanous [00:10:39]:
And as I kept applying those different strategies throughout every semester, it just got better and better. And then I found out that as I am embracing the different leadership roles, not only through the Student Bar Association, but through different various organizations on campus, My grades kept getting better because I made more connections. And if I didn't understand a specific theory of law, I can go talk to somebody in one of those other organizations or another professor to really help kinda hone that that knowledge in and then it worked amazingly.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:07]:
Now you talked about the fact that you did get involved in your law school experience. You found ways to find that niche for yourself, but also found ways to be able to become a leader for the entire campus, becoming the student body president for the Lansing campus of Cooley Law School. So talk to me about that experience because not every student will decide to get involved outside of that academic experience. What did that do for you? And what do you say to others that are thinking about graduate school in regard to doing that balance of school versus the out of class experiences?

Elias Fanous [00:11:43]:
I look back at my time in the Student Bar Association, not just as a class senator because I was I started off as a senator. And the nice thing about that was I got to meet other students that were further ahead than I was in law school and from different parts of the country and different viewpoints. And I still keep in touch with a great deal of them today, and that really kinda opened my eyes. Someone has this different mindset, and you can kinda talk to them and see what's going on. But it was a camaraderie. We're all sitting there in law school. We're all stressing our futures. We're stressing finals.

Elias Fanous [00:12:14]:
We're stressing, you know, at the time, you know, someone's in research and writing or in the moot court program or on a national trial team, which I am ultimately doing as well, you've kinda said bond, forged, and fire, if that makes sense. And being part of that really kinda drove me to, okay, I wanna run for student body president. And being at that campus in Lansing, I guess, talk specifically about Lansing because I don't really know the lifestyle that it was in Auburn Hills or Grand Rapids at that time. But you'd walk into the Cooley Center, and everyone was just kinda hanging out down there. It was always full, and people would say, hey, how you doing? And you could just jump into a different study group wherever you went, and people had this kind of bond of, hey, we're gonna help each other. And being president of the Student Bar Association was fantastic. I got to meet leaders from other campuses. I got to get really intimately involved with the day to day operations of the law school with my relationship with, at that time, Dean Don LaDuke.

Elias Fanous [00:13:09]:
I got to know you quite well. You're our advisor. And it really set things up for the future. It turned out that because I worked so well with dean Don LaDuke, when I came back to Flint to practice law, I had gone to a couple different association meetings, mainly the bar association meeting and then the Centennial ends of court. And I was introduced as a new attorney, and I had met a gentleman by the name of Carl Bacosti. And I owe Carl a great deal, great man. He had gone to law school with Donald Duke. And when he found out I went to Cooley, he had reached out to Donald Duke.

Elias Fanous [00:13:39]:
And because I was able to cultivate those relationships from being student bar president, helped me land my first office. And one thing that I will reach to the end of my days as an attorney is that first year and a half, Carl wouldn't charge me rent. He gave me office space to get under your feet. And I said, well, how can I ever repay you? And he said, just do it to the next person, and I will continue to always do that. But being that leader and going to different campuses, seeing what's going on, we had a lot of, as you may remember, we had a lot of issues between the campuses and trying to kind of figure out what's going on. And then there was political issues within the law school. It taught me how to problem solve and also kind of direct so we had different sub committees and I had to learn how to balance the sub definitely the definitely the best decision I ever made to get involved. But I would caution people, don't get involved until you have your grades right.

Elias Fanous [00:14:31]:
Because it took a lot of time. It was a lot of energy. And I'm glad I waited to make sure that I had the proper grades, the proper studying techniques to get to that next level. Because if I didn't, you'd crash out. You simply would just crash out. And there were people that did. There were people in my class that tried to get involved right off the bat, and they just kinda misappropriated their time. And for one reason or another, they didn't they didn't last, unfortunately.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:54]:
Well, now you are in your profession. You are practicing in a very busy way. You are a public defender. You are doing a lot of other work outside of that public defending work as well. You're currently running for office for a judge position. So you've got a lot of things going on. As you reflect back to that education that you got, how do you feel that that education prepared you for the things that you're doing on a daily basis?

Elias Fanous [00:15:19]:
Specifically with respect to Cooley, I had some great mentors there as well. But Cooley truly prepared me to how to be a lawyer. So I wasn't, like, walking in trying to figure out how am I gonna run a practice. It was the relationships that you cultivate. It was the work ethic that you cultivate and it was also the ability to communicate. Those are the 3 big things for me and I picked a great county to stay in. I was born and raised here, and I often tell people Genesee County is the best county in the state of Michigan to practice law. Everyone is very friendly and very helpful to one another.

Elias Fanous [00:15:52]:
There's a couple of drays out there that don't subscribe to that mindset, but I would say 98% of the the attorneys in the county will help each other no matter what. And I can truly speak to that because I went through some really tough and dark times in the beginning of COVID with the loss of my wife. So I had to take a step back from practicing law. She had just given birth to our son, our first child, and then she passed away, you know, tragically 11 days later. And I had attorneys coming out of the woodwork. Hey. Can we cover your cases? Doing things via Zoom. Whatever you need, we'll get it done for you.

Elias Fanous [00:16:26]:
And the the community rallied a little bit around me and allowed me to kinda get through that grieving process and then to get back into the swing of things as far as practicing law. But had I not had the experiences at Cooley with respect to making those kind of relationships and understanding how things work, because it's not just black and white. Practicing law is a lot of gray. And that really helped me get my foothold in here in Genesee County, talk to people, kinda cultivate those relationships the same way I did when I was student bar president, and then it just paid out in dividends. And it still does to this day. I'm in a leadership role right now with with the County Bar Association. I'm the incoming vice president for the County Bar Association, and next year, I'll be the president. We kinda have a graduation step.

Elias Fanous [00:17:09]:
You know, you start off as the secretary, then you move into the treasurer position, then vice president. And so you're learning about the next job from the next person who's doing it at the same time. And it's just like being in school again. You're watching how someone does something, taking notes, and trying to understand the thought process, the rationale, and then you take that next step and do the same thing. And that kind of translated itself into into my practice. And my practice is thriving. I'm very excited about it. I'm excited about the future, and we'll see what the future holds here in a few weeks with respect to the judicial campaign.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:41]:
Now as you think about people that are thinking about graduate school, whether it be law school or not, what's one piece of advice you'd wanna give to every individual thinking about that?

Elias Fanous [00:17:50]:
The first thing I would say is research the school. Find out if you know. For example, for me, I didn't know that I wanted to be a litigator. I didn't know I wanted to be in public defender work until I got to law school, but I knew what the relationship was with different areas with Cooley, and I knew the history of the school at the time. And so research the school. Figure out exactly what you wanna get out of it. Make a goal list. You know, what do you wanna accomplish outside of just getting your degree? And this school that you picked, is it gonna fit those goals? And then once you do that, reach out, find people that have gone there, and get their opinions.

Elias Fanous [00:18:23]:
For me, it was a blessing that my cousin had just had recently within 3 years had graduated from the law school, and it really helped sell the school to me. And then once, once you figure out that which school it is and you've talked to people, then sit down and contemplate it. Write a goal list and pros and cons. Because for some people, they're gonna move away. They're gonna go to a school outside of Michigan or outside of wherever they're from, And you also have to kind of balance that as well because it does make things difficult when you gotta come home for certain things or you wanna come home and maybe you can't on the drop of a hat. So, but for sure, always research the school, look at who their faculty are, and see what kind of accomplishments they have. Is it purely academic? Or is there more tangible, you know, work in the field being done with that school as well?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:07]:
Well, Elias, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for sharing your story today, for sharing what you learned in this process, and what helped you to find success, and I wish you all the best.

Elias Fanous [00:19:16]:
Thank you so much.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:17]:
The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of masters and doctorate programs if you are interested in continuing your education. Whether you're looking for in person or online learning options, the University of Michigan Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at [email protected].