Alumni Spotlight: Cordell Carter II ‘07
Broad Resident, Seattle Public Schools
Ten years. Six countries. Three foreign languages and three degrees. That’s Cordell Carter II by the numbers.
Now, for the rest of the story.
Carter earned his Juris Doctor degree from Notre Dame Law School two years ago and was recently awarded a Broad Residency in Urban Education—a management development program for graduates from business, public policy, and law schools who have at least four years of work experience in the private or public sector.
The Broad Residency provides immediate placement into full-time management positions in urban school districts. “They’re trying to develop a new generation of people who will create educational reform, and having the chance to be a part of that endeavor, perhaps someday serving in the capacity of superintendent, could be really rewarding,” says Carter. He is currently serving as special assistant to the chief financial officer/chief operating officer of the Seattle Public Schools.
Before his Broad Residency, Carter was working as a visiting attorney at Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau Bankengruppe (KfW) in Frankfurt, Germany, on a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship for Young American Leaders. Bosch accepts just 20 people each year for the award, which enables young American professionals in a variety of fields—business administration, economics, journalism, law, political science and public policy—to participate in an intensive work and study program in Germany. The program aims to advance transatlantic relations and contribute to the participants’ professional competence and expertise.
Carter earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, and went on to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for his master’s in public policy and management studies. He decided on law school after studying in France and then working for IBM in Bethesda, Maryland, for a few years. “I wanted out of the rat race,” says Carter. “I chose Notre Dame Law School because it promised to educate ‘a different kind of lawyer,’ and that is exactly what I was after. So my wife and I bought a house in South Bend, left the D.C. area, and never looked back.”
Carter says he was surprised at how adept NDLS professors were at weaving in Catholic social thought with all of the courses—“even federal taxation,” he says with amazement. “It’s an important perspective, and it’s appropriate to look at issues through that lens here.”
While Carter’s current work and aspirations do not involve the practice of law, he cautions people “to not think myopically about their law degree. When you take a look at the leaders across this country, many of them went to law school. We’re just using our degrees differently.”
