Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
Harvard Law School grad Elliot Schwab is a pop star … somewhat. His myriad activities at Harvard also included songwriting, and Schwab knew he’d found success when he hopped into a Jerusalem taxi during a clerkship for an Israeli judge last summer, and one of his songs started playing on the radio.
Law School graduate Eliot Schwab multitasks, from music to real estate to Talmudic studies.
While at Harvard Law School (HLS), he worked for an Israeli supreme court judge, raised two small children with his wife, studied Talmudic law, labored on a U.S. Supreme Court petition, served as a project manager for an international legal and policy consulting firm, took classes at Harvard Business School and Harvard College, and prepared for a career in real estate law, all while doing pro bono work with aspiring musicians.
Oh, and he’s a songwriter too.
“I have a hard time turning down cool opportunities that arise,” said Schwab, who will head to New York with his family for a job with the firm Simpson Thacher after graduation. “And in a place like Harvard, cool opportunities arise all the time.”
The New York native’s route to Cambridge was less traditional than the average HLS student’s. Schwab had studied exclusively in yeshivas in the United States and Israel, educational institutions whose prime focus is on ancient Jewish law. The work perfectly prepared him for HLS and beyond, he said, teaching him how to analyze theoretical underpinnings and providing him with “a strong foundation in moral, religious, cultural, and ethical spheres.
“That sort of an education turns out to be excellent training for law school and life.” …
His musical experience came in handy at HLS. He provided free counsel to music industry artists and producers through the School’s Recording Artists Project clinic. He also helped craft a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court with HLS Professor Charles Nesson that urged the court to hear the case of Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston University student sued by the recording industry and fined by federal courts for illegally downloading and distributing songs.
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