Every day, Ben Franklin ‘06 realizes his lifelong desire to work in law at the Boston firm of McDermott Will & Emery. In May, Franklin was part of a successful appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He also serves as president of the Boston UMW Alumni Network.
The path that led Ben Franklin ’06 to a career in law started out when he was just a kid growing up in Danbury, Conn. In high school, he took part in a mock-trial program and interned at a local law firm to see if he liked the work, and he did. “Law is one of those things I wanted to do ever since I was in elementary school,” Franklin said.
Coming to Mary Washington turned out to be a good step toward that goal. Franklin, 27, picked UMW because he wanted a smaller liberal arts college with a good history department.
He also wanted a school far enough away from home to allow him what he called “that true college experience.”
What he learned in his four years at Mary Washington helped lay the foundation for his chosen career. Franklin got involved in the University’s Debate Program, where he honed his skills in advocacy and oral persuasion.
In his classes, Franklin said, the close interaction with faculty taught him about researching and writing. That one-on-one work with professors “is not something that would happen at a large research institution, but Mary Washington puts a value on that.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree in history and graduating summa cum laude, Franklin worked in the Capitol Hill office of Mike DeWine, then a senator representing Ohio. “It seemed like everybody I worked for was an attorney,” he said. “If you wanted to pursue any type of career, a law degree was the tool to get there.”
So Franklin entered the Boston University School of Law, graduating cum laude in 2009. After a stint working for a member of the Boston City Council, Franklin became an associate at McDermott Will & Emery, in the firm’s Boston office, where today his practice focuses on white-collar criminal defense and civil litigation.
One of Franklin’s high points with the firm came in May, when he was part of a successful appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The firm was petitioning the court to require Massachusetts to provide hormone therapy to a transgender client whom a judge had committed to the state’s Department of Corrections. Franklin worked with a team to prepare the brief to the appeals court and wrote the argument section. In May, the appeals court ordered the state to provide the necessary care. “That was a fantastic opportunity,” he said. “You learn a lot from it.”
That case was a big step in part because it gave Franklin a chance to learn from more senior attorneys at the firm. That experience mirrors what he found at UMW, he said. “You learn the value of a teaching faculty when you’re at Mary Washington.”