Parents’ Simultaneous Health Crises Led to Rising 3L’s Estate Planning Focus

Rising third-year student Erik Brannon became interested in law school while taking pre-law classes as an undergrad at the University of Illinois. He narrowed his focus to estate planning during the year before he began at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law for a very personal reason: Both of his parents faced life-threatening illnesses—both have since recovered—and he helped them find an estate planning attorney and draw up documents.

“I vetted a few of them,” says Brannon, recipient of the Geoffrey F. Grossman scholarship, named for the local tax attorney (JD ’59) and given to students with a demonstrated interest in tax law. “I read books on estate planning, and I became really interested in it. I went with them to the estate planning attorney to get their wills, trusts, and other end-of-life legal documents.”

An Evanston native who grew up close enough to the Dempster Street El stop that he could hear the automated “doors closing” announcement from his bedroom window on quiet days, Brannon says Chicago is “pretty much in my blood,” and he plans to stay in the area long-term.

Although the pre-law classes prompted his initial interest in law school, Brannon had heard that, given the rigor involved, it was best to make sure he wanted to be a lawyer before applying. So he tried a few other things first, attending a U.S. Marine Corps officer training program, managing a bakery, and working on an organic farm. “I did a lot of different things like that—anything that would let me not be in an office,” he says.

But Brannon’s thoughts kept circling back to law school; and, as a final step, he went to work for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office as a legal assistant, which reaffirmed his interest. He then deferred his matriculation to Northwestern Pritzker Law for a year because of his parents’ illnesses—his mother had cancer and his father had become paralyzed—and he appreciated the Law School’s understanding. “Even though it was technically too late to defer, because it was extenuating circumstances, they still let me,” he says.

Once he did matriculate, Brannon had no question he wanted to do trusts and estates, which he notes is somewhat unusual given the niche nature of the practice. “I continued learning more and more about it,” he says. “Northwestern offers a lot of estate planning classes. I have met a countless number of estate planning attorneys here in Chicago. … I feel well-positioned to break into this practice area.”

Partly inspired by Brannon’s experience, his girlfriend, a graduate of University of Illinois law school, already practices estate planning law. “It’s kind of funny because when the both of us are home, and we’re working side by side, we’ll be talking about … the minutiae of this super-niche practice area,” he says. “Which is a little nerdy, but we enjoy it.”

During his two years at Northwestern Pritzker Law, Brannon has availed himself of the estate planning classes in the LLM Tax Program, where JD candidates can also take courses. This semester, all of his classes are estate planning–focused, and he’s grateful to have the opportunity to take them as a JD student. “The courses are often taught by adjunct faculty still in practice,” he adds. “I think it’s really practical.”

Outside of class, Brannon has written about estate planning for the Northwestern University Law Review, and he serves as vice president of the school’s Tax Law Society and as president of the Trusts and Estates Law Society. Both of those groups hold speaker events, usually inviting practicing attorneys, but will sometimes invite academics who have written books about the practice area as well.

“It helps students see if they’re interested in these things, and it’s a good way for them to connect with attorneys,” he says. “It’s also a good way for us, as event hosts, to connect with attorneys. … I think it’s helped me to demonstrate my interest in tax law, and trusts and estates law, that I’m part of these clubs.”

For example, the Tax Law Society invited attorneys from Kirkland & Ellis’ tax group to speak, and it was one of those attorneys who called Brannon to offer him an internship this summer. “Does hosting these events and meeting attorneys at them have anything to do with obtaining job opportunities later? I certainly don’t think it hurts,” he says. He hopes to receive an end-of-summer offer to work for Kirkland upon graduation.

During his 1L summer, Brannon held an externship with the Circuit Court of Cook County’s Probate Division, where he worked alongside the division’s judges, drafting orders in response to motions from estate planning attorneys. “I talked to an estate planning attorney before doing this, and she said it would be a really good opportunity,” he says. “It allows you to see how judges who are administering your client’s estate think.”

Throughout his two years at Northwestern Pritzker Law, Brannon says receiving the Geoffrey F. Grossman scholarship has been helpful to him in terms both of paying for law school without any debt to date and of opening doors: “It’s really good to have anything on your resume … that helps demonstrate your interest in a particular practice.”