Member Stories

Being a higher education attorney means being a strategic advisor to a mission-driven institution that changes peoples’ lives. We make an enormous difference in helping our clients navigate thorny challenges and launch innovative efforts, all in service to the institution’s goals and in support of our wide-ranging community and stakeholders. Especially in today’s complex higher education landscape, we are not just defenders or resolvers, but we are relationship builders, conversation facilitators, and creative thinkers. I feel honored to work shoulder-to-shoulder with leaders who are trying to do big things in the right way every day.

—Becca Gose, Vice President and General Counsel, Oregon State University

NACUA members are on the frontline of multi-faceted attacks on higher education, the rule of law, and longstanding norms – attacks that make the world feel bleak at the moment. The community I have found within NACUA provides a critical antidote to that bleakness. NACUA members are not afraid to dive in, to ask hard questions, to give of their time, and to share their knowledge. The connections we make with one another across NACUA provide the stability, the foundation, and the framework for friendship, leadership, service, and faith in the greater good that comes through collaboration and meaningful engagement.

—Leslie Gomez, Vice Chair, Institutional Response Group, Cozen O’Connor

With the legal landscape changing so quickly and significantly these days, as a NACUA member I regularly experience that I am part of an organization whose sole mission is to support the effectiveness of my practice as a higher education lawyer for the benefit of my university. This support takes many forms including timely and often daily legal updates, impactful continuing legal education through briefings, webinars and thought-provoking presentations, and perhaps most importantly these days, the community of care that has always been wonderful but right now, feels like an oasis. I love NACUA!

—Lili Palacios Baldwin, Deputy General Counsel, Labor, Employment & Litigation, Tufts University

In my view, higher education attorneys hold the best and most interesting legal jobs in the nation. Colleges and universities contribute uniquely to scholarly and scientific progress and to the civic good; moreover, they serve as perhaps the greatest engines for social mobility in our country. In order to address the complex, urgent, and in some cases existential challenges facing American higher education today, universities increasingly require excellent lawyering across the broadest range of legal issues. For these reasons, I take great pride in assisting our university clients to achieve their important community, national, and public interest missions.

—Cody W. Meixner, Associate General Counsel, Georgetown University