Six years ago, George Thurlow arrived on the New College of Florida campus to begin his first year of college.
A native of New Jersey, Thurlow came to New College for a number of reasons—academic rigor, the intellectual curiosity of the community, the ability to work closely with faculty, affordability, warm weather, and the excellent graduate school placement that New College offers. When starting college, Thurlow knew that there was a strong likelihood he would proceed to law school.
While at New College, Thurlow—a political science and public policy student—spent much of his time focused on domestic politics, both in and out of the classroom. His thesis focused on United States healthcare policy, and his Independent Study Projects (ISPs) were centered around gerrymandering/redistricting issues, the 2016 Iowa caucuses, and the 2017 presidential inauguration/transition.
Outside of the classroom, Thurlow immediately became active in local politics—working as an organizing fellow for Charlie Crist’s gubernatorial campaign in 2014, Fredd Atkins’ campaign for Sarasota County Commission in 2016, Hagen Brody’s campaign for Sarasota City Commission in 2017, and Margaret Good’s special election to the Florida House of Representatives in 2017 and 2018. He was also president of the New College Democrats and served on the Florida College Democrats State Executive Board.
With this political and policy interest, the natural step for Thurlow post-New College was to go to law school. He applied to a number of law schools both in Florida and around the country but ended up just 30 miles north of New College at Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg. Thurlow was drawn to Stetson for its strong regional reputation and close-knit community. He decided to pursue the J.D./M.B.A. program to gain business background and acumen.
Thurlow now returns to New College, while completing his 3L year at Stetson, to serve as an extern to General Counsel David Fugett. An externship is essentially the law school version of an internship for academic credit (along with a small classroom component at the law school). Most law schools provide some level of an externship program to give law students real-world experience in a variety of settings, whether it be a courtroom, college or major corporation.
Thurlow decided to do his externship at New College to gain perspective on practice as a general counsel, at an institution of higher education, and in a government setting (all of these are areas in which Thurlow is interested in practicing).
As an extern to the general counsel, Thurlow is excited to be back at New College, learning about the law, as well as helping develop pre-law programming for current New College students.
“While I believe New College prepared me well for the rigor of law school, when I see some of the current pre-law programming developed by General Counsel David Fugett, I am blown away and wish I had some of those same opportunities,” Thurlow said. “I’m excited to help make these programs even stronger this semester.”