Lawrence Oliver II, ’91,
Engineers a New Career in the Law
BY PATRICIA MAJHER

The typical path to preparing for law school is to major in a subject like history or political science. Then there’s the path taken by Lawrence Oliver.

Lawrence Oliver

Lawrence Oliver, who grew up in the steel town of Gary, Indiana, earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering at Purdue University. Upon graduation, he accepted a supervisory job with the General Motors Truck and Bus Group in Pontiac, Michigan—a position that put him in frequent contact with GM’s labor relations team. Explained Oliver: “I worked with them to handle grievances and to interpret the provisions of union contracts.”

Fascinated by the legal aspects of labor relations, Oliver considered transferring into the department. Unfortunately, turnover there was minimal. That didn’t stop him, however, from dreaming about a new kind of work: “I found myself thinking what a law degree might enable me to do.”

A devout Christian, Oliver felt he was being directed by God to pursue a new career, and his wife Denise encouraged him to move on as well. “[With her blessing,] I felt at peace with my decision to leave engineering for law,” he said.
In 1988, he took the LSAT and started applying to law schools in the Detroit area. Detroit College of Law fit the bill best, and a Trustee Scholarship sealed the deal. “I didn’t think I’d be able to go to school full time,” he said, “until I applied for and received that assistance.”

His time at DCL was marked by extraordinary achievement: winning a national moot court competition, being voted president of his class, and, ultimately, sharing the Charles H. King Award for the highest grade point average.

After completing his degree, Oliver moved to Chicago, where he clerked for Chief Judge James B. Moran of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois. “I relished the federal court environment…writing draft opinions, observing trials. It was a great transition [from law school].”

After a year, he accepted an associate position at the local office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. “The idea of building a career in Chicago appealed to me,” said Oliver. “My wife and I were both from northwest Indiana, and we wanted to stay close to our families.”

At Skadden Arps, Oliver specialized in product liability. As he explains, “I did a lot of mass tort work involving breast implants, asbestos, insurance sales practices.” Then, in 1998, an opportunity presented itself at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago. “I always knew I wanted to work for the U.S Attorney,” he explained. “I’d interned for the Detroit office while still at DCL.”

As Oliver expressed it, the experience of working as an assistant U.S. Attorney was—in a word—“unbelievable.” He continued, “It was such an honor to represent our country, to be able to say ‘Lawrence Oliver for the United States.’”

One of the things that attracted Oliver to the job was its clarity of purpose. “It had as pure a mission as you can have: to do the right thing, to see that justice is served.”

As an attorney within the criminal division, Oliver was assigned a wide-ranging workload. One memorable case involved a pro se lawyer who smuggled Cuban cigars into this country and sold them for 10 to 20 times their original value. “Interestingly, the defendant had written a ‘novel’ about his exploits,” said Oliver. “It wasn’t admissible as evidence, but it sure made for good background reading.”

On a more serious note, Oliver also was the attorney of record for the office’s first GHB (date-rape drug) analogue case. “We took down an Internet sports supplement operation, with the help of expert witnesses who testified to the drug’s chemical makeup and the physiological responses it could induce.”

Then, in 2002, the largest law firm on the West Coast came calling. Perkins Coie was talking about opening a Chicago office that year to serve its biggest client—Boeing—and to solicit new business. Lawrence Oliver’s federal trial experience coupled with his background in product liability fit right into their plans. Oliver started as a partner at the firm in February of this year.

Perhaps the assignment he’s most proud of these days is his appointment—by Mayor Richard Daley—to a panel studying how to achieve better enforcement of safety codes in the wake of the E2 nightclub disaster.

In just a dozen years after leaving DCL, Lawrence Oliver has advanced steadily and dramatically in his legal career. He attributes much of that success to his alma mater: “From my first position as a summer associate, I knew that the education I received would prepare me to compete with students from any law school.”