For Michelle Gluck, ’83, choosing which academic path she would follow was better left in the hands of fate. Torn between medicine and law, she decided to let test results determine her next steps.
“I became interested in the law through learning about environmental issues,” says Gluck. “But at the time, I had been pre-med at Michigan for three years and couldn’t decide which to pursue. I chose to take the LSAT in the spring and the MCAT in the fall. I told myself that whichever one I did better on, I’d take it as a sign.”
Gluck chose law school. During her 1L year, she lived in the Lawyers Club and solidified a bond with her classmates that remains as strong today as when it first formed. “There was something magical about what we experienced together,” she says. “When I attended Reunion last fall, it was a testament to our camaraderie—we had one of the largest turnouts for any 40th Reunion in recent memory.”
Gluck gravitated toward corporate law after taking a commercial transactions course and received hands-on litigation experience as an associate for Dykema Gossett LLP in Detroit during her 2L summer.
“I love to negotiate, so I knew I could do that through litigation, but I liked it more in the context of corporate work,” she says. “I realized I was drawn to the business side of the law.” To satisfy that interest, Gluck has been fortunate to add business responsibilities to her various legal roles.
After graduating from Michigan Law, Gluck spent six years with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP in Richmond, Virginia, where she practiced mergers and acquisitions, banking, real estate, and general corporate law, which set the foundation for the rest of her career. “When I think back, it was absolutely the best training I could’ve gotten to become a general counsel,” she says. “I got to see a little bit of everything.”
Michelle Gluck, ’83I gain more than anyone I mentor—hearing their ideas keeps me and my work fresh. It’s rewarding to help somebody be the best they can be and move past whatever is standing in their way.
Juggling her career with raising a young daughter, she transitioned to in-house roles. “I loved the law firm, but M&A required extensive travel back then,” she says. “It was hard to balance both, so I took a different direction.”
After leaving the firm, she was hired by Best Products Co. as its first general counsel. She has held a number of in-house leadership positions throughout her career, including a stint as deputy general counsel at Kmart that brought her back to Michigan before returning to Richmond in 2003 as general counsel of LandAmerica Financial Group. Since 2009, she has served as executive vice president, general counsel, and chief risk officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
Gluck has been involved with the Richmond Public Schools on a number of projects and is currently on the board and audit committee chair for Virginia Commonwealth University Business School. Sharing her expertise through mentorship is something Gluck has practiced for years, whether it’s through her work or community engagement.
“I gain more than anyone I mentor—hearing their ideas keeps me and my work fresh,” she says. “It’s rewarding to help somebody be the best they can be and move past whatever is standing in their way.”
She also enjoys being philanthropically involved in the lives of future leaders. Access to education has always been important to Gluck, and she wants to ensure others can experience a great education as she did.
Gluck recently established a $1.5 million scholarship at Michigan Law that will be funded through a charitable remainder trust. “I am where I am today because of the education I received at the University of Michigan,” she says, “so I couldn’t think of a better institution to support.”
