Cultivating the Complete Professional

“I learned a lot from my dad,” he said. “He was really good at what he did and made me want to be that way too.”

“When it came to sports, it was serious,” he said. “I needed to play well. If not, I was hearing about it on the car ride.”

At age 11, Nuernberger moved with his parents to the United States, where his mother Michelle is from. It was in high school that he started playing football. He went on to become rated among the Top 10 kicking prospects nationally by all the recruiting services as a high schooler, and enrolled at Ohio State University (OSU) in 2014. There he excelled as a four-time OSU Scholar-Athlete and a four-time Academic all-Big Ten honoree. But when an injury took him off the field his Senior year, everything he had been training for up until that point was brought to an abrupt stop.

“I was basically done for,” he said. “That humbled me a lot. You're on the top. You're doing well, then you get hurt and you're just — nothing essentially, right?”

Narrowing down law school choices, UC was obvious because his (now) wife’s family was from Cincinnati. But Cincinnati is also home to more than 800 law firms and many Fortune 500 companies, and he knew living there would afford him real-world experiences in law, while avoiding some of the hassles of big city life.

“Cincinnati is a big city, but it doesn't really feel like one. It has everything you would want, whether that's big law firms or things to do, but it doesn't take forever to get places,” he said. “It is kind of the best of both worlds in that respect.”

At the start of law school, Nuernberger could see right away that while the idea of competition is what drew him to the field, the actual experience of law school was more than that.

"Everyone at UC is super passionate and welcoming," he said. "And that’s fun to be around. It makes it that much easier to withstand this grind that law school is."

He continued to look for these opportunities to ask questions and get support throughout the rest of his time as a law student. During his summer externship with GE Aviation his first year, Nuernberger learned that even real attorneys look out for law students. He has held onto his role with GE Aviation ever since, and refers to his colleagues there as being “like family.” 

After he passes the bar this summer, he’ll be moving to Chicago to learn the ropes of corporate law, getting to work alongside people who are the best in the field. In addition to the years of being coached by his father at becoming his best, Nuernberger credits UC Law for preparing him and encouraging him to ask questions along the way.

"If you're joining a corporate group, you're not going to know what you're doing until a few years in. Those first couple of years, you're just doing some due diligence,” he said.  “Until I know what I’m doing, I'm going to be asking a million questions.” 

When asked what success is at this point in his career, Nuernberger first emphasized the importance of his family’s happiness. Part of that happiness, he expects, will come from having a career that he loves.

“I got lucky going to play football at Ohio State. I got to show up every day, and everyone at every position were all pretty much the best at what they did,” he said. “I think that's what I was looking for in a career, and why I'm so excited to go to a place like Sidley. I'm going to look down the hall and everyone I’m working with will be super high caliber. That's exciting.”

Want to learn more about our students and their journey to (and through) law school? Read their stories on the "Meet Our Students" page. See yourself at Cincinnati Law.

All images by Asa Featherstone, IV

Author: Katie Bachmeyer