By: Michele Lynn
UNC School of Law provides the foundation for students and graduates to pursue a wide range of paths. This is clearly shown by the recent experiences of Kyle Hurysz, Kristina Smith and Dan Sullivan.
Kyle Hurysz
The challenges that Hurysz ’27 has faced as a result of his cerebral palsy diagnosis have informed his scholastic and career paths. “When my friends were playing basketball, I was reading books,” Hurysz said. “That steered me toward an academic path.”
He noted that a large part of practicing law is overcoming challenges, which he has done throughout his life. “I think that’s helped prepare me for thinking outside the box, which is required in this profession,” said Hurysz.
Hurysz has excelled at Carolina Law where he serves as editor-in-chief of the North Carolina Law Review, the School’s flagship journal. He joined the North Carolina Law Review in his first year, after participating in the Joint Journal Competition. In his current role, Hurysz selects articles for publication, coordinates assignments among the journal’s teams and works with University officials.
This summer, he worked as a summer associate in the Houston office of the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom. After three months focused on transactional work, including corporate mergers and acquisitions, Hurysz knows that he wants to do this type of work after graduation.
Among the things he appreciates about Carolina Law are the community and the Career Development Office. He is grateful for how the School connects scholars with opportunities such as summer experiences, clinic programs and externships. “We have an incredible community at Carolina Law,” said Hurysz. “Everyone here is so supportive, and I’ve made so many great friends. I think that’s a credit to the institution.”
He sings the praises of the Career Development Office. “They make sure everybody at Carolina Law ensures our students are prepared to do whatever they want to do, whether it’s working at a big law firm, in public interest or a judge’s chambers,” said Hurysz. “Whatever they want to do, they’re going to be prepared to do it at a high level from the start.”
Kristina Smith
When Kristina Smith ’26 graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this past May, it was with both a law degree and a master’s in social work. She said she was drawn to this path because “lawyers have the opportunity to change the legal system, making it more accessible and easier to navigate, while social workers provide individualized support to people as they face challenges that can further complicate their legal needs.”
She is now putting her combined skills and training to use in a two-year civil rights fellowship with national civil rights law firm Relman Colfax, a leader in fair housing litigation.
Smith’s commitment to housing justice was solidified during the three years she worked at the Community Empowerment Fund in Chapel Hill after completing her undergraduate studies at Duke University. Working directly with people who were often unhoused or housing insecure, Smith came to believe that housing is a human rights issue. “Housing is one of the most significant factors impacting individuals’ financial stability, influencing many facets of their lives, including their access to medical care and schooling for their children,” said Smith.
Coming from a direct services background, she sees housing as a multifaceted issue that needs to be thought of holistically. “Relman Colfax is doing exactly that, which is why I’m excited to grow and deepen my skills as a civil rights litigator there,” said Smith.
Smith credits Carolina Law for helping her earn the fellowship. In her third year, she worked on a foreclosure scam case in the Civil Legal Assistance Clinic. “I was doing research, writing a brief for the court and preparing to orally defend the brief, which coincided with when I was interviewing for the fellowship,” said Smith. “It was great to be able to talk about the skills that I was actively building.”
Extracurricular activities — including as an editor of the North Carolina Banking Institute Journal and a member of the Holderness Moot Court team — honed Smith’s research and writing skills. She describes her classmates as smart and motivated people who want each other to succeed. “My friends have been a massive part of my success at Carolina,” said Smith.
She is grateful for faculty mentors, particularly Professor Kate Elengold who has helped Smith “figure out the attorney that I want to be” and Professors Richard Saver and Carrie Floyd whom, she says, “invested in me and wanted me to succeed.”
For Smith, success means that her clients’ lives are better. “I hope that the clients I work with feel that I showed up for them and treated them with dignity,” she said. “I want my work to mean that more people can find housing without discrimination and live safely and affordably.”
Dan Sullivan
Dan Sullivan ‘26 expected law school to be a cutthroat environment. Instead, he found a sense of camaraderie from his first day at Carolina Law.
When he learned that Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson ’69, circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, wanted him to interview for a clerkship, he shared the news with a close circle of friends. “I was so blown away by how supportive my friends were of me,” said Sullivan. “They thought my success was their success.”
That interview resulted in Sullivan receiving a one-year clerkship which began in August. He said that a substantive component of the interview involved talking about the law and being prepared to opine on legal questions.
“At Carolina Law, there were a lot of opportunities to talk normally about the legal issues of the day,” said Sullivan. For example, he studied for his exams with friends, working as a team to better understand and get into the nuances of the law. But those opportunities were not just limited to the classroom.
Another example he cites is the trip he and seven classmates in Professor Eric Muller’s “Lawyers in Justice and Lawyers’ Injustice” seminar took to Heart Mountain in Wyoming, where World War II era attorneys implemented and defended the unjust imprisonment of Japanese Americans. “We were able to step outside of an exam-focused context and explore the legal and ethical implications of the lawyers’ work on internment and what it means to be a lawyer more generally,” said Sullivan.
This isn’t the first time Sullivan has worked in a court system. He was a judicial intern with the tribal courts of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians during the summer between his first and second years of law school. “The internship made clear to me that if I had the opportunity to be back in a judge’s chambers, it would be a dream come true,” said Sullivan. He is excited to be back in the courthouse, alongside a fellow Carolina Law alum.
Sullivan’s tribal court internship sparked an interest in federal Indian law, which he explored in an article published in March in the North Carolina Law Review, where Sullivan served as comments editor. Another extracurricular activity, Holderness Moot Court, helped him hone his communication skills and become a persuasive advocate.
He appreciates that the University is a public institution with generous scholarships and much lower tuition and fees than peer universities. “The School attracts a wide range of people with different backgrounds,” said Sullivan. “I think the lower costs also mean that when people graduate, the diversity of their career paths is much broader than at comparable schools. Carolina Law’s value per dollar is better than any school out there.”
