Advances: Bankruptcy LL.M. Alumni Thrive as

Bankruptcy LL.M. Alumni Thrive as Judicial Law Clerks and Practitioners

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Bankruptcy LL.M. program at St. John’s Law. In those two decades, it has built a reputation as the nation’s preeminent Master of Laws program devoted to bankruptcy and restructuring. As they pursue their degree full time and part time, St. John’s Bankruptcy LL.M. students gain the knowledge, skills, and experience they need to be leaders in the field.

Like many current and past Bankruptcy LL.M. students, Jennifer Schein ’21LL.M. handled some bankruptcy matters as a lawyer before starting at St. John’s. She was drawn to the “fastpaced, intricate, collaborative, and diverse” practice area and wanted to accrue more extensive, specialized knowledge. “I saw how cases handled in bankruptcy affect our everyday lives—from what we eat and how we get to work to how we treat our environment and what we do on the weekends,” Schein says. “Bankruptcy provides relief to individuals, as well as large corporations and municipalities, based on the wide variety of cases at the intersection of federal law, state law, and the code.”

Less than a year into her LL.M. studies, with the support of St. John’s faculty and administrators, Schein earned and began a judicial clerkship with Hon. Lisa Beckerman in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. “Judge Beckerman has been a leading practitioner, and I feel incredibly honored to be one of her first law clerks as she takes the bench,” Schein shares. “I’ve already learned so much through my clerkship, and I have no doubt that I’ll grow my knowledge and gain a deeper understanding of the Court that will have an immeasurable effect on my career in the future.”

As she looks to that future, Schein finds inspiration in the career of Kristin Going ’02LL.M., a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP who co-teaches Schein’s Business Bankruptcy Reorganizations class as an adjunct professor at St. John’s Law. Among the first Bankruptcy LL.M. students, Going was a few years out of law school and practicing at a creditor’s rights boutique when she realized that she wanted to

From Left: Jennifer Schein, Kristin Going, Ravi Vohra, Zach Latos, and Emil Khatchatourian

focus on large, complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases.

“While St. John’s was the only program that offered the bankruptcy focus, I was also eager to learn from the adjunct faculty members—the stars of the New York bankruptcy practice—who gave me and my classmates firsthand accounts of the cases we were studying,” Going says. “At the time, my family and colleagues all thought I was crazy to leave a well-paying job to go back to school for a year. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. The knowledge we acquired in one year of the program would probably take at least 10 years to accumulate through practice.”

Today, Going taps that knowledge as she advises clients across industries in bankruptcy and restructuring matters. “It’s a very diverse practice, and I love the fact that we bankruptcy lawyers move between litigation and transactional issues on a daily basis,” she says. “I also enjoy sharing those practical insights with my St. John’s students. It’s an opportunity to give the next generation of bankruptcy lawyers the leg up that I received from the LL.M. program.”

Going’s McDermott colleague, Ravi Vohra ’09C, ’13L, ’14LL.M., recognized the value of that ‘leg up’ early on. “By the time I was a 3L at St. John’s, I had already completed about half of the LL.M. curriculum,” says Vohra, who was an editor for the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review and associate director for the Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition as a J.D. student. “So it was a no-brainer to commit to another semester for a degree that, in my opinion, would give me the edge in a competitive field. I loved the expediency of it all. If you’re the type of student who fires on all cylinders, the LL.M. program is a perfect environment to absorb as much as you can as quickly as you can.”

Vohra also appreciated the opportunity to learn from acclaimed scholars, expert practitioners, and respected judges who bring their experience and expertise to a range of LL.M. courses, including:

• Bankruptcy Tax • Bankruptcy Procedure • Consumer Bankruptcy • Business Bankruptcy

Reorganization • Small Business Bankruptcy • International Bankruptcy • Bankruptcy Clerkship Seminar • Complex Bankruptcy Litigation • Valuation & Remedies in

Bankruptcy

“If you’re an employer looking for restructuring and bankruptcy associates, I don’t think there’s anything better than seeing 30 credits of bankruptcy coursework on a candidate’s resume,” Vohra notes. That same depth of knowledge, he says, made him a standout clerkship candidate. “I was hired to clerk for Hon. Robert Mayer in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. I owe it all to the faculty and administration at St. John’s. They supported me every single step of the way, from reviewing resumes and cover letters to conducting mock interviews.” Zach Latos ’19L, ’20LL.M., who is clerking for Hon. Joseph N. Calloway in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, is equally grateful for the support he received at St. John’s. “When I was a J.D. student, Professor Ray Warner encouraged me to take bankruptcy courses and consider the LL.M. program,” he says. “I followed his advice, and was intrigued by the expansive nature of the practice, which would allow me to be a general practitioner in one sense, and a specialist in another.”

As he built his bankruptcy knowledge and skills at the Law School, Latos was guided by Associate Director of Career Development and Bankruptcy Counseling Laura Schwartz ’90. “We met several times a week to discuss my career plans and strategize about right-fit clerkships,” he says of his work with Schwartz, adding, “To this day, she continues to mentor me, and I can’t thank her enough for that.”

Through the years, along with Latos, Vohra, and Schein, dozens of St. John’s Bankruptcy LL.M. students and graduates have secured selective judicial clerkships and positions at leading law firms with the help of the program’s faculty and administrators. That track record was just one of the things that brought

Emil Khatchatourian ‘13LL.M.

to St. John’s Law from California. “I was excited that prominent bankruptcy judges and practitioners would be my professors and mentors,” he shares. “I also felt that moving to New York—arguably the epicenter of the bankruptcy and restructuring industry—would put me in the right environment to expand my professional network.” From the outset, Khatchatourian aimed to clerk for a bankruptcy judge after wrapping up his LL.M. coursework. He found champions in and beyond the classroom at St. John’s. “The faculty played a key role in introducing me to the right people within judicial circles,” he says. “In fact, I interviewed with Judge Chris Klein, who was visiting New York from California, in the chambers of one of my professors, Judge Elizabeth Stong. I’ll never forget the thrill of walking away from the Brooklyn courthouse with an offer to clerk in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of California.”

In turn, Khatchatourian notes, his achievements as a law clerk made him that much more appealing as a candidate entering the ranks of a large law firm and sophisticated bankruptcy practice. Today, he is senior counsel at Foley & Lardner LLP in Chicago, where he lives with his wife and fellow LL.M. graduate, Natallie Santana ‘12LL.M., and their young son. “My LL.M. experience is a cornerstone of my success, personally and professionally,” he says. “My family got its start at St. John’s, and my LL.M. paved the way for me to have an enjoyable and enriching career in what is a truly dynamic practice area. I’m right where I want to be.”