Learners for Life: Thriving at the Intersections of the Law and Other Disciplines

When Tim Ellerbe (MSL ’21) is asked to share what drew him to pursue his Master of Studies in Law degree in Business Law and Compliance, he unequivocally credits the University’s reputation. He relishes the reaction he gets when people ask about it. “You have a law degree from Wake Forest?” he quips, mimicking an impressed expression. “That opens doors.”

As Senior Program Manager for IT Security and Compliance at Dell, Inc., Ellerbe is very much enjoying how the degree has enhanced his role working with lawyers and legal teams where issues of privacy and security intersect with business operations and practices.

“Companies get sued for not getting this stuff right,“ he says, and a big part of his job is ensuring that Dell is and remains compliant with the laws regulating its business.

He joined the company after 30 years at Hewlett-Packard, and quickly found himself feeling restless as he contemplated the next step to take in his IT career. Ellerbe identified security, privacy, and compliance as issues of top concern in the technology space, so he set out to find a degree that would accommodate both his new career ambitions, as well as his lifestyle as a long-time working professional. He found a multitude of options and eventually settled on the Wake Forest Law MSL due to the school’s reputation, and because the program felt like exactly what he needed to learn to become a security and compliance officer.

The fact that the MSL program felt tailor-made to Ellerbe was not a coincidence. In the summer of 2015, then-Dean Suzanne Reynolds (JD ’77) hired Professor Ellen Murphy (JD ’02) to re-invent the MSL as a part-time, online-only degree to meet the needs of working professionals. It was to be a market-driven curriculum by design, and Murphy spent a great deal of time performing extensive research, consulting with industry experts, and conducting market studies. She discovered the tremendous need for professionals who understand how to mitigate risk in their workplaces — a need that was only matched by those professionals’ desire for maximum flexibility to accommodate their busy schedules. The program was developed based on Murphy’s research, and it currently offers a curriculum focused on three tracks: Business Law and Compliance, Health Law and Policy, and Human Resources.

Sam Parker (MSL ’20) feels his MSL in Health Law and Policy differentiates him from his peers because it focuses on a different aspect of the needs of his organization.

“I’ve seen a lot of friends go back and get their master’s in social work or MBAs,” said Parker. “I chose this degree because it is a different way to look at the same problem.”

He began his current role as Program Manager for the Ryan White Department at Atrium Health in January 2021, and he credits his MSL for helping him get the position more quickly. In this role, Parker has taken on writing Standard Operating Procedures for his department, managing staff, working with the General Director on HR issues, and ensuring he is documenting correctly in the highly regulated business setting in which he works.

When discussing the contributions having this degree helps him bring to the Ryan White Department at Atrium Health, he said, “Am I the authority? No, but this degree has given me the ability to have a good basic understanding to help avoid some pitfalls” — pitfalls that can be costly to any organization.

Learning from world-class faculty who invite leading legal experts to the classroom is often cited by MSL students as a great value-add to their classes. Parker recalls an experience where a state judge speaking in one of his classes discussed how over-documentation will often be as detrimental to a case as under-documentation because both denote inconsistency and carelessness that can complicate a complaint.

Having access to classroom speakers at that level was a unique experience that stood out for him, he says. This high level of professor interaction and engagement is not a given in an asynchronous online format, yet the Wake Forest Law MSL accomplishes this through its faculty and administrative staff, who remain committed to providing students with a high-caliber academic experience.

The program recently completed its fifth year in its current format. Dean Jane Aiken has continued the work of meeting with leaders in different business sectors to identify new opportunities to grow in ways that remain responsive to the needs identified in the marketplace. Working with newly-arrived Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs Chris Martin and Director Amber Featherstone, they are exploring ways in which the MSL could enhance other graduate programs within Wake Forest University.

“Though our program is still young, the experiences of career advancement and professional fulfillment our MSL students report back to us after graduation have inspired us to invest more resources into growing it much, much further in the years to come,” said Aiken.

The program is expanding its offerings to MSL alumni who want to audit classes as a way to keep their knowledge and skills current. Ellerbee, for one, has already enrolled and completed his first class audit since graduation, Cybersecurity and Privacy. It was a class he wasn’t able to take during his time earning the degree.

“And I’ll be taking some more classes,” he says, spoken like a true life-long learner.

For more information on the Master of Studies in Law, visit the program homepage.

This story originally appeared in the 2021 issue of the Wake Forest Jurist.