Political scientist-prelaw advisor cited for bringing knowledge, real-world view to the process
The soirée begins as the nearly two dozen other gatherings hosted by political science professor Milton Heumann have begun: 20 guests seated around two, linen-draped tables, making chit-chat, passing dinner rolls.
Heumann, prelaw advisor in Rutgers’ School of Arts and Sciences, is in his element, surrounded by distinguished colleagues in law and education, and by students he mentors. They will be joined shortly by several dozen more undergraduates – many who’ll become Heumann’s future mentees – when he convenes the after-dinner, public Careers in the Law panel he launched 23 years ago with support from the Office of the Vice President of Undergraduate Education.
The annual program introduces students to prominent judges, large-firm attorneys, solo practitioners, corporate counsels, defense attorneys, public defenders and federal prosecutors happily willing to share years of war stories.
But first comes salad, accompanied by laughter-inducing introductions from the gregarious former Brooklynite, whose mission this evening is to share joy as well as knowledge among friends old and new.
“This is Mr. So-and-So,” he begins, enthusiastically squeezing the young man’s shoulders, “a top student, co-writing a paper with me. He’s going to Harvard and has been accepted by four other law schools, but I won’t name them all because if any of you are alumni of the others, you’ll be disappointed.” The spotlight shifts one chair to the right. “This is Judge Such-and-Such. A friend told me she’s brilliant, so I invited her, even though I’ve never met her,” he gushes. “She’s got a great resume, and she’s come all the way from South Jersey!”
To say Heumann is merely a mentor would be gross negligence, akin to calling Perry Mason “just a lawyer.” A mentor’s mentor would be a more apt description.
“He’s larger than life,” said Brian Pinaire, a former student, who organized a successful letter-writing campaign supporting Heumann’s selection for the 2011 Teaching and Mentoring Award of the Law and Courts section of the American Political Science Association.
“Forty-nine of the 50 people I contacted wrote letters,” said Pinaire, an associate professor of political science at Lehigh who encountered Heumann in 1997 during doctoral studies at Rutgers, and who has been a close friend ever since. “He deserved to win this award. It’s a really big deal in political science.”
While the recognition is largely for working with graduate students, Heumann doesn’t distinguish between 19-year-old sophomores and doctoral candidates prepping for their thesis defense.
“Milt says everyone needs to listen to their heart and figure out the kinds of things they want to do with their lives,” says H.W. Perry, a mentee from Heumann’s stint as a professor at the University of Michigan. Perry is now associate professor of government and law at the School of Law at the University of Texas.
“Academic mentors sometimes want students to replicate themselves. Not Milt. He tells people to do what’s best for them.”
What’s best doesn’t necessarily involve law school.
Heumann offers the example a history major who came into the office with a Law School Admission Test score of 154 (out of 180) – around the 50th percentile – and said, not too convincingly, ‘I want to go to law school.’ After considering a bit, the adviser replied, “Ever think of being a high school history teacher?
“Then he brightened up and got excited. ‘I would love to do that … and also be a coach,’ he said. Most of the kids who come to my office have decided [on law], but others are exploring their options. Being a prelaw adviser is relatively easy – helping with the LSATs and application process,” Heumann says. “I try to go more deeply into their reasons for thinking about law school.”
Heumann urges students to take a year or two off after college, and travel if they can. “Most parents hate that advice,” he confesses, “but some kids are burned out and need time to rekindle enthusiasm. And if their parents don’t like the idea, I tell the kids to tell them that if they’ve been accepted to a top school, usually the school will let them defer admission for a year.”
Heumann also believes in experiential learning for his students. He supplements his graduate and undergraduate courses and seminars in subjects including civil rights and liberties and the politics of the American criminal justice system with field work and trips.
"Milt is very committed to exposing students to the real world,” said Pinaire. “A staple of his upper-level seminars is a visit to Newark State Prison, a maximum security institution where students have the opportunity to see all the kinds of things you would imagine of prison life, but which they hopefully would not otherwise see.”
Perry recalls one of the highlights of Heumann’s course at Michigan was an overnight tour in a police cruiser, watching cops catch speeders or responding to a domestic violence situation, “which can go from shear boredom to extreme danger in an instant.” The experience, Perry says, “helped me understand the police mentality.”
Heumann cautions students to view their first job offer through realistic lenses.
“There’s a perception of $160,000 starting salaries at New York firms,” he says, “but that’s for a very limited number of students. Most who find jobs in this tight legal job market will earn substantially less, and so it is important to remind them that when law school ends, they may face the reality of huge debts which need to be repaid.”