A liberal arts major in college, Preussel '06 was surprised when she enjoyed taking Corporations in her first year. She gives part of the credit to the teacher: Jonathan Macey, the Sam Harris Professor of Corporate Law, Corporate Finance, and Securities Law. "He’s a great professor, very interactive in the classroom," says Preussel. She ended up working as Macey's research assistant. "I got involved in some of the issues going on then in corporate law and found it to be really interesting."

At the time, the news was filled with stories about corporate scandals, such as the collapse of Enron. "You hear the buzzwords, like 'fraud,' and I really wanted to understand it. So, I did a lot of research for Professor Macey, but I did some on my own too," says Preussel.

Her take on the regulations enacted in response to the corporate scandals, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? She's skeptical. "I’m really big on the idea that you can’t legislate morality, and that’s just another instance of the government trying to do so.... It also creates more red tape and more barriers for people to get through in order to operate in this economy, and I don’t think that’s ever a good thing."

Preussel went on working for Macey through all three years in law school, contributing research to an update of his textbook on corporate law. In her summers, Preussel worked in corporate law at law firms. She planned to clerk for a federal judge after graduation, but her long-term plan was to practice corporate law, probably in the South.

As she looks forward to a career in corporate law, Preussel is glad she was also able to explore a variety of legal subjects while in law school. To be effective in corporate law practice, she says, "You have to approach it from not just a corporate-law perspective, but from a criminal-law perspective and from a policy one, and with economics and social issues in mind, as well." And Preussel says that YLS was the right place for such a broad look at the law. "You can make your law experience here anything you want it to be."

Read more about the study of corporate law at Yale Law School.