Sarah Braun

J.D./M.B.A. Program

Sarah Braun is always up for trying something new. She is excited to break ground as the first student in the new J.D./M.B.A. program established by Southwestern and the Drucker Graduate School of Management of Claremont Graduate University.
 
Although she grew up in a close-knit family in Los Angeles, Braun's parents always encouraged her and her four siblings to explore the world, which prompted her to move to New York to pursue a degree in American Studies at Barnard College. After graduating, she spent an additional year in Manhattan working for an international public relations firm. Then she became even more adventurous and moved to Thailand, where she taught at an international private school. Braun admits that being really integrated into such a vastly different culture was a challenge since she had only traveled there once before with her family and does not speak the language (though she took some classes and picked up the basics).
 
After returning to the United States and applying to graduate school, Braun embarked on a new overseas adventure and spent 10 months living in Argentina. There, she worked in marketing for a new magazine called Buenos Aires Insider. "I had studied abroad in Italy [when I was an undergrad], so picking up Spanish wasn't as difficult," she said.
 
Upon returning to Southern California, she began the M.B.A. program at Claremont's Drucker School to possibly pursue consulting and entrepreneurship. While at Drucker, she also considered work in public policy and developed an interest in alternative dispute resolution and advocacy that got her thinking about attending law school. When Southwestern and Drucker announced the new concurrent degree program, she knew it was an opportunity she could not pass up. (Because the program was developed while she attended Drucker, Braun has already completed her M.B.A. degree. It will take two and a half years to finish the J.D. program at Southwestern.)
 
"I feel having a law background will benefit me because I want to eventually have my own business," she explained. "For someone like me who doesn't know exactly what direction I want to take, a legal education is always going to be valuable. What I've been learning here is amazing, and we should all be learning this on some level." Braun has especially enjoyed Professor Williams' Criminal Law class and LAWS with Professor Gharakhanian. Although she is still acclimating to law school, she is becoming involved in the SBA and participating in Teen Court. "Getting involved is something that's very important to me. I was president of the student body at Drucker."

Although Southwestern and Drucker are vastly different, Braun enjoys both schools and says they share an important commonality. "I love smaller academic environments. It's where I thrive the most. I like law school so far. The workload is immense. But because I took time off between college and grad school, I had a chance to miss that academic stimulation that I loved so much."