Associate Attorney at Kaufman Borgeest & Ryan, LLP
Class of 2009
By Vyctorya Thomas-Vanzant, English Intern
While not everyone has the same college experience, one sentiment most students can agree on is that the direction we expect to go in is not always where we end up. This was the case for Neil Fox. Working as a lawyer in New York, Neil had first entered college on an entirely different path.
Fox was born and raised in Oxnard, California and chose to attend Channel Islands State University (CSUCI). This gave him the opportunity to live at home and avoid student debt while completing his bachelor's degree. In the beginning of his academic career, he chose to major in liberal studies with an emphasis in music. However, after considering his future opportunities, Neil decided he wanted a major that would be more practical. He had always been a good writer in high school and enjoyed most formats running from poetry to essay writing. This led him to switch his major to English with a technical writing certificate where he would have the opportunity to learn different areas of writing. “I guess I dashed my hope of being a rockstar, but now I’m a rockstar attorney,” he joked.
Neil shared that the classes that had the most impact on him were those that fell under the technical writing certificate requirement and literary theory. The classes he took for technical writing taught him how to digest large amounts of dry text and summarize it in a way that is easy for the general reader to understand. “I do that every day as an attorney. The clients are as busy as we are… I kind of have to get the point across in a concise way,” he said. “Being able to translate complex concepts into their most basic components for the client’s benefit is a skill as an attorney that I started learning as an English major.”
Literary theory helped Neil by helping him learn to analyze material with different lenses. He recalled using this technique in his criminal law class while attending Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. “You learn about different theories of punishment. In the criminal context, why do people go to jail? What's the policy behind that? Is it rehabilitation? Is it retribution? Is it just separating people from the population? There are many different theories to why people are in prison. It was kind of a philosophical question, and it's the same sort of philosophical question through which we were analyzing works of literature in literary theory.”
When asked what encouraged him to go to law school, his interests and personality are some of the factors that helped him decide.
“I thought personally, being a technical writer seemed a little too dry and… it’s funny to say, but a little too technical,” he laughed. “I felt that being an attorney had an advocacy component to it that I thought fit my personality. I thought I would take what I learned in analytical skills and writing skills in undergrad and just take it a step further by going to law school— and money.” he joked. “We have to pay bills, right?”
Neil graduated from CSUCI in 2009 and from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in 2012, after which began preparing to take the bar exam. At the time he and his wife were choosing between remaining in California, or moving to New York to be closer to his wife’s family. In order to have flexibility in their decision, Neil planned to take the bar exam for each respective state. He recalls this being one of his biggest challenges pursuing his law career as he had to study topics he wasn’t taught at his law school in California. His hard work paid off as Neil passed both bar exams and was admitted into each jurisdiction in 2013. Ultimately, the couple chose to reside in New York, where he has practiced law ever since.
Like many CI students, Neil found that he often had to explain in his New York job interviews that CI isn’t actually on the Channel Islands. “They thought I went on a rowboat to class everyday or something,” he laughed.
Neil has worked in his current law firm for 6 years, his position focusing on professional liability. “That means I represent insurance companies that insure professionals,” he explains. “When either companies or boards of directors are involved in claims like a lawsuit or an investigation, I basically analyze coverage of the claims under the professional liability policies and work with defense counsel in resolving the claims.” His position requires research, drafting, correspondence, and a lot of writing.
Neil encourages English majors who enjoy the analytical and technical side of writing to consider looking into law school, as being an attorney is a reliable profession that is always in demand in certain areas. “You can do other things with a law degree. You can work in government, you can work in a nonprofit… there's a lot of opportunities,” he said. “I think that path has worked for me and it can work for a lot of other people too.”
Email: nfox@kbrlaw.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilfoxesq/