Meet James A. Snyder (BA, '98, history and English), the co-head of Sidley Austin's Chicago Global Finance group and co-leader of the law firm’s Private Credit and Syndicated Finance practice. After graduating with distinction in history, he went on to earn a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School. He said his degrees in history and English prepared him well for law school and were the foundation for his path to becoming a partner at one of the largest law firms in the world.
Read on for a Q&A with Snyder to learn more about his career.
Why did you decide to pursue a degree in history?
I had always been interested in world history and current events and enjoyed coursework focused on reading and writing. I did well in my initial history courses at U of I, and as I began to consider pursuing a law degree it became clear to me that double majoring in history and English played to my strengths and made a lot of sense.
Did you pursue higher education after undergrad?
Yes, after college I went to law school and graduated with a J.D. from The George Washington University School of Law in 2002. My history degree from U of I was terrific preparation for law school. Much of what you do in law school, and ultimately as a lawyer as well, involves reading large amounts of material, absorbing information, and then organizing it all and preparing related work product. My history coursework was great training for all of this, especially the research and writing that I did working on my history honors thesis with professor Arnstein, which I really enjoyed and was one of the highlights of my college experience.
What was your first job after college?
I had various clerking and similar type positions while I was in law school but my first real job after college and law school was an associate position at Freeborn & Peters in Chicago. Freeborn was a litigation focused firm with a small corporate practice and I was the first associate they hired directly out of law school to do corporate work.
What is your current career and how does your degree in history inform your work?
Over time I focused my legal practice on doing lending and finance related corporate work. Today I am the co-head of the Global Finance Group at Sidley Austin in the Chicago office and also act as the co-head of Sidley’s Private Credit and Syndicated Finance practice. As far as how my degree informs my work, I would say that a history background provides a person with a broad, well balanced perspective on life, people and our world; how things can go well and people and governments and organizations succeed, as well as how they can move sideways and fail. Having that perspective, being able to see risks and identify challenges but also being able to identify the paths to solutions and progress, I think that is helpful as I work with my clients and try to solve their problems.
What do you enjoy about your work?
One of the most rewarding aspects of being a lawyer, is having the experience and vision to be a trusted advisor to a client and help make their life better. To solve their problems. That is a lot of what we do on a day to day basis—there are certainly technical aspects and such to our work and the documents that we draft etc., but at the end of the day if we are able to manage a project to a timely, effective, constructive resolution, that helps our clients, and it builds their confidence in their relationship with us and that becomes a very enjoyable and virtuous circle.
What does a typical workday look like for you? Also, what is an example of the most interesting aspect of your job?
My typical workday has evolved over time. I am a partner at one of the largest law firms in the world, so we do work a lot. For lawyers like me with a corporate practice that means a lot of calls and zooms with clients and other lawyers, a lot of drafting of documents, and a lot of electronic and similar correspondence pushing it all forward on a tight timeline. Senior lawyers also spend a lot of time meeting with clients to try and generate business, training and managing junior lawyers and other people who we work with, and also more generally dealing with the many day to day issues that arise in running a business. Today I spend a lot of time on all of the above.
What advice do you have for students interested in pursuing work in your field?
There are a lot of questions today about how AI is going to affect the field of law just as there are in other industries. The questions are fair and certainly things will change, but I still believe that there will be plenty of need for talented young people in the legal profession in the years to come. I always felt that my background with the heavy reading and writing focus was ideal preparation for law school and working in the legal profession and I think that will still be true in the future. Other educational curriculums can be helpful though too—I know plenty of very successful lawyers who had degrees in engineering or the sciences or business—those can also translate very effectively into practice specialties that help a young lawyer get a running start at building a legal practice.
What is your proudest achievement?
My proudest achievement is my family. My wife Nicole, who I met at U of I where she graduated with a degree in psychology and a masters in public health, and our two amazing daughters Sadie (16) and Hailey (14), and everything that we have done together and for one another, and all that the girls will do as they each spread their wings and make their way in the world, nothing matters to me more and there’s nothing I could prouder of.