Principal and General Counsel for Commercial Real Estate Development Company

Name: Thomas M. Burke

Major: History/Political Science

Law School: Universtiy of Minnesota

Description of your job: Principal and General Counsel for TOLD Development Company, a commercial real estate development company. I am one of two owners of the company which develops, office, retail, and housing for our own account. I provide both legal services and act as a sort of Chief Operating Officer, for lack of a better term.

Do you have any advice for students who are considering going to the same law school you did? Get to know a professor or two well so that you can recieve a written reference from someone who actually knows you and your work. DIfficult at the U unless you take several courses from the same professor. In my case Paul Murphy, taught civil liberties courses of which I took most if not all. Get in the honors program or the equivalent so you can graduate with honors. Take advanced writing courses to improve your writing skills. I don't think any particular major or courses are that important, merely doing as well as you can in whatever you take.

Is there anything in particular that you did during your undergrad that benefited you more than anything else in getting through law school and/or transitioning into the legal profession? If anything, I would probably have taken more accounting and finance courses to understand that aspect of business. Many more grads from law school end up in a business sort of job or dealing with businesses, than anything else.

If you had a chance to go through law school all over again, is there anything you would do differently? I would not be fearful of law professors, the Socratic Method and the classroom process. I would focus on business type law classes‑ finance, accounting, tax, real estate, etc.

Is being a lawyer what you expected it would be? Why or why not? Don't know what I expected it to be. As a child you only think of litigators as lawyers, but in practice they are a minority of lawyers. I can say that by emphasizing commercail real estate in my practice, I have found it both interesting and economically rewarding.

What is it like transitioning from being a law student to being a lawyer? You realize immediately how little you know, but law school does teach you how to think like a lawyer and work hard. Applying those principals of critical thought with hard work makes the transition easier.

Is there anything students should know about the legal profession before they decide to commit their life to it? Not all lawyers either like their jobs or make lots of money. So don't go to law school just because you don't know what else to do. The education process in law school is the least likeable years of schooling, in my opinion, classmates can be very competitive to the point of unpleasantness and law school professors are hit and miss as far as quality of teaching goes. I had tremendous teachers as an undergrad‑ Paul Murphy, Joel Samaha, and many others in history and poli sci. I had about 3 law school professors I would rate highly.

What does a typical day look like for you as a lawyer? Arrive at work, read and review leases, purchase agreements, development documentation, loan documentation, negotiate same, administer legal department.