University of Michigan Law School Appoints Susan Guindi as Assistant Dean for Career Services

Summary

The University of Michigan Law School is proud to introduce Susan Guindi as their new Assistant Dean for Career Services. Guindi has extensive experience in providing career advice to students and young professionals. She started her career in higher education in the Office of Scholarship and Financial Aid at the University of Michigan.


Guindi is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and has held several leadership positions within the university. She held the position of Director of Financial Aid at the University of Michigan Law School and Assistant Dean at the University of Michigan Division of Student Life.

Guindi is an enthusiastic and energetic leader who is passionate about helping individuals reach their career goals. As the Assistant Dean for Career Services, she is tasked with the responsibility of supporting and guiding law students in their career development. She comes with a wealth of knowledge and insight in the field of legal education and career services.

Guindi has developed a strong network of Law School and external employer partners over the years and she intends to use this to help students through career counseling. She also plans to create additional initiatives that will help students navigate the job market and identify their ideal career goals.

Guindi is committed to the professional success of students and alumni. She is convinced that students have the potential to achieve great success with the right support and guidance. She plans to provide the necessary guidance and support to help students make an impact in their chosen field.

The University of Michigan Law School is pleased to welcome Susan Guindi as the new Assistant Dean for Career Services. With her expertise in career advice and strong network of employer partners, she is well-positioned to provide excellent guidance to students and alumni. Guindi is passionate about helping individuals reach their career goals and she looks forward to providing the necessary support and guidance to help students make an impact in their respective fields.
 

Susan Guindi – Assistant Dean for Career Services at the University of Michigan Law School

In the fall of 2015, Susan Guindi was named the Assistant Dean for Career Services at the University of Michigan Law School. Her new position requires her to be in charge of overseeing and managing career services for the Law School. She is responsible for providing students with career counseling services as well as helping them develop professional development skills. Additionally, she provides employers with information about recruiting and hiring of University of Michigan Law School students and alumni.
 

Background and Education of Susan Guindi

Susan Guindi earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill before receiving her Juris Doctor degree from Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law in 2003. After graduating from law school, she worked for several years as an assistant for an appellate defense attorney.
 

Susan Guindi's Legal Experience

From 2011 to 2014, Susan Guindi held the position of Assistant Staff Attorney for the Ohio Supreme Court. There, she was responsible for researching and writing briefs for the Justices of the Supreme Court. She was also involved in the administrative and operational duties associated with the Court.
 

Career Services at the University of Michigan Law School

Susan Guindi is now the Assistant Dean for Career Services at the University of Michigan Law School. Her primary role is to facilitate the professional development of students and alumni. She provides students with career counseling and career-planning services in order to help them develop the skills and knowledge necessary to pursue their desired career paths. Additionally, she works with employers to promote the hiring of University of Michigan Law School students.

Susan Guindi, Assistant Dean for Career Services at the University of Michigan Law School, has a personal knowledge of the problems that face the students in her charge. "After I finished law school, it took five years for me to figure out what I wanted to do and was happy doing," Guindi said. "I hope I can help my students do that a little faster."

Guindi graduated from Michigan Law in 1990, and clerked for Dennis Archer (former Mayor of Detroit and recent President of the American Bar Association) on the Michigan Supreme Court. She then entered private practice. "When I was in law school, I was convinced I wanted to be a litigator," Guindi said, "but I found out that [litigating] wasn't really where my strengths and interests were."

She found work at a large law firm in Washington, D.C., but it wasn't a good fit. "So, I went to a smaller firm, thinking a larger level of responsibility might make me enjoy work more. But that wasn't the problem," Guindi said. "So," she added, "I hired a career counselor!"

In her work in the private sector, Guindi handled cases involving the breakups of law firms - an occurrence she compared to a divorce. "They air all the dirty laundry; it's really interesting." Working on one of those cases with the wife of a client who had recently passed away, Guindi realized that she was meant to be a counselor - just not one in the legal sense. "I wanted to get into counseling mode and see how this woman was handling everything, but that's not what she was paying me for," she said. So Guindi fixed that. She saw an ad for a job in the Office of Public Service in Michigan, interviewed for it, and took it.

"That," she said, "was the best decision of my life. I've been in this job for six years and I love it."

"There is no one way to help a student," she says. "Some need to read things, others need to talk them over. Some students come into our office as 1Ls, nervous, and spend lots of time with us. Others come in right before they graduate and say 'Get me a job.'" She smiled. "My job is to try to do the best I can with 1,100 different personalities," she said.

Because of that diversity, Guindi adopted a counseling model for her office. "We do programs, we do panels, but there's so much variation in our student body," she said. "So, I decided the one-on-one (career counseling) is best. It's not the most efficient, obviously, since it takes more work, but I think it's the most effective."

It can be frustrating, however. "Sometimes you have to tell students things they're not ready to hear," Guindi said, "or work with students who realize things late in the game. But we do what we can to help. [As] anyone who's entered into a counseling or therapy relationship knows, unless you want to be there, it's not going to help. Some students who can't do that need us to give them extra help, a little parenting." "When students have been out from undergraduate work, they know their strengths, so it's a matter of brainstorming with them to find the best job for them," Guindi said. "When someone hasn't had time off, or has less of an idea of what he or she wants to do, it's more of a challenge. You have to draw that out. Sometimes, that's where the 1L summer comes in handy; you find out what you like and it's got to be on the job. That's how you learn."

Guindi said her office's toughest challenge is simply keeping up with the times. "Because of the burst in technology, firm's expectations and demands are changing very fast," she said. "It's a challenge to keep on top of those."

Also, she added, Michigan Law is a uniquely situated school. "Michigan is truly a national school," she said. "No more than 15% of our grads go to any one market. In an East Coast school, 70% of graduates may go to one or two markets. Not here. So here, (a challenge) is being knowledgeable about five or six markets, instead of one or two."

Guindi laments the fact that a relatively low number of recent Michigan graduates take jobs in the public sector - about 8% between public interest and government jobs combined. "I'd like to see that bumped," she said. She lauded Michigan's Office of Public Service for creating a series of fellowships and working to build relationships with government recruiters.

Helping students with an interest in low-paying public interest work keep their idealism intact is another challenge. "My job isn't to tell students to do A or B," she said. "I don't judge. I tell them the pros and cons and let them make their own decision."

But, she warned, "I understand the temptation when someone who has a public interest career in mind takes a summer job at a firm his or her second summer and gets that offer. It's a known entity, a sure thing, and it's hard to turn them down, start at zero and start looking for a job," she said. "I give [students] that caveat, especially when you have such large debt," she added.

It's not all that bad, of course. "A Juris Doctorate is a phenomenal degree for those of us who may have short attention spans," Guindi said. "The day of some law grad going to one firm for the rest of his or her life are over. I went to my five year reunion and almost everyone there had made at least one job switch. There's no one track you have to get on, which makes it more relaxing."

"There's not that much pressure, since there's a zillion jobs in and out of the law," Guindi said. "And," she added, "you only need one.