Celebrity Summer Associate: An 'Apprentice' in Law

A former star of Donald Trump's popular reality television show, The Apprentice, is now "apprenticing" at a major law firm, as a summer associate. Who is this ex-Apprentice, and where is this person working?

Today we bring you a new installment in our popular series on celebrity summer associates. The stories in this series have been positive and uplifting — but we should note that we welcome tales of summer associate scandal as well.

With the summer winding down, it’s safe to share salacious tales of SA misbehavior. Please submit them by email, to tips@abovethelaw.com (subject line: “Summer Associate Story”), or by text message. As you know, we keep our tipsters anonymous.

Now, on to today’s celebrity summer associate.

Last week, in a piece for the New York Times’s Room for Debate project, I argued for reforming legal education by bringing back apprentices in law. But I was not optimistic about that change happening anytime soon.

Well, it seems that my call for apprentices has been heard. A former star of Donald Trump’s popular reality television show, The Apprentice, is now “apprenticing” at a major law firm, as a summer associate.

Who is this ex-Apprentice, and where is this person working?

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His name is Adam Israelov. He starred in The Apprentice 4, and he went pretty far in the competition. He’s rather cute (even if not up to Phil Alito standards).

Adam is a member of the class of 2012 — i.e., a rising 3L — at Northwestern University School of Law. This makes him a classmate of one of our past celeb summers, Korean pop star Nikki Lee.

This summer Adam is working in the Chicago office of Baker & McKenzie — which is, interestingly enough, the founding office of the global mega-firm. It’s also the former professional home of the très elegant Christine Lagarde, former Baker & McKenzie chairman and current managing director of the International Monetary Fund (since that unpleasantness surrounding Dominique Strauss-Kahn).

Here’s more about Adam, from his official website bio:

Many will recognize Adam from Donald Trump’s hit show The Apprentice. Adam is a Georgia native and son of Israeli immigrants. Although he has lived elsewhere for short periods of time he has always considered Georgia home.

Adam graduated from Georgia State University in 2003 with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in risk management and insurance. He completed his degree in less than three and a half years graduating in the top of his class, magna cum laude. He began his career, while still attending college, at Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC) in their investment banking group and three years later he was ready for another challenge; he joined the Financial Risk Management consulting group at KPMG LLP….

In 2006 Adam joined Roswell Capital Partners, a small-cap private equity fund, in Atlanta, Georgia. Adam joined the team as an analyst, however, he was quickly promoted to an Investment Officer position with two primary roles: deal origination and portfolio analysis. He has executed over 25 deals during his time there.

Adam is excited about his new endeavor, being a student at Northwestern University School of Law.

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And that takes us to where Adam is today, a 2L summer at Baker & McKenzie. You can learn more about Adam, including his hobbies and his impressive volunteer work, in his complete bio.

We reached out to Adam for comment on his summer at Baker. He’s definitely a happy camper.

“The summer program is coming to an end today,” he told us. “Simply put, the experience was great. The folks I worked with are nice and the work given to me was both substantive in nature and challenging.”

If Adam Israelov can make it to the final five on fourth season of The Apprentice, surely he will be successful in getting that offer from Baker & McKenzie. We wish him the best of luck in getting hired rather than fired at summer’s end!

Adam Israelov [The Apprentice 4]
Adam Israelov biography [AdamIsraelov.com]