Blaze Bowers ‘21 is Regional Director for Client Relations & Engagement at Grand River Solutions, a firm that supports educational communities in developing systematic change that meets compliance requirements while creating a sustainable framework for mutual respect in Title IX, Equity, and other compliance spaces.

He’s also a Lecturer and PhD candidate in Higher Education Administration at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a former Assistant Vice President for Academic and Student Support Services, Senior Title IX Compliance Officer, and Instructor at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN.

Originally from West Virginia and Ohio, Blaze attended Grace College in Winona Lake, IN, where he majored in Secondary Social Studies Education and History before starting at Stetson in 2018. He continues to serve on the Stetson Lawyers Alumni Association (SLAA) Advisory Council. We sat down to discuss his experience at Stetson Law.

What drew you to law school instead of becoming a teacher?

It was a culture shock going to law school after being an education major. There was definitely a bigger learning curve. But I don’t regret it at all. I’d always wanted to go to law school as far back as I can remember—like first grade—but I loved education. It’s my passion, it is my joy, and Grace College had an absolutely phenomenal education program.

So I told myself, “Well, let’s diversify. I’ll do my undergrad in education, get a really quality teacher practicum curriculum, and then I’ll do law school afterwards and hopefully specialize in education law.” So that was my pathway.

What made you choose Stetson?

When I was finishing my undergraduate program there were two potential interests that I had with law school: one was education law, the other was international affairs. I was researching Stetson, and I remember Professor Luz Nagle was featured as one of their international legal experts, and they had the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy. So it just seemed like Stetson had pretty much everything that I wanted. 

Plus I was really attracted to the fact that Setson is number 1 in Trial Advocacy.

"Lawyers are advocates, and if I could go to the law school in America that’s number 1 in advocacy, why wouldn’t I?"

So Stetson University just hit all the markers. And I actually never even visited. My first day on campus was the day before my first class! I just showed up on campus and that was it!

What was that experience like, showing up here on campus in person for the first time and experiencing this place?

"I’ll never forget what it was like to walk onto campus for the first time. It was surreal. It’s absolutely stunning."

I lived on campus, and I remember moving into my apartment that day before classes and thinking, “This is basically like going to Hogwarts.” I was just so excited to dig into my studies and dedicate three years to studying at a place where I also truly enjoyed being.

No matter how hard law school got or how crazy life was, it was always breathtaking to walk out of my room in the evening, look at the tower in the courtyard, and think, “Wow, I get to live here, and go to school here.”

What did you think of Gulfport?

I got plugged into the Gulfport / St. Pete community pretty quickly, and it felt like home to me. It was fun, it was engaging. I think to this day I have more friends just from the general community than I ever imagined I’d meet. I found a church that I absolutely loved in St. Petersburg, and I had community groups that I was a part of. The food was incredible, the people were incredible. Gulfport and the St. Pete area provided me with a beautiful community and a sense of belonging—they energized me for all three of those years.

What sort of community organizations were you a member of?

I was a member of Bridgepoint Church in downtown St. Pete. They had a young adult community organization, and that was where I made some of my best friends for my entire life, through that community. I was also a student member of the Thomas E. Penick, Jr. Inn of Court, which connected me with lawyers in the area who became great friends and great mentors. It’s where I met Judge Pamela Campbell, who was a judge in St. Petersburg. I ended up becoming a judicial intern in her office in the summer of 2019, and to this day we still talk. She’s such a great mentor and friend.

How did you decide what area of law you were going to specialize in while you were at Stetson?

The truth is I truly did not know in my first semester of law school: it was a real stressor for me. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, because I always wanted to go to law school, but I was kind of like a dog chasing a car: I caught it and didn’t know what to do with it.

So I got super involved in everything I could my first year at Stetson Law. I joined every club you could possibly think of. I went to every group, plugged in with my professors, and just explored. I got involved with the International Law Society, and I was very blessed to work with Professor Nagle, who actually just retired recently. I was her research assistant the second semester of my first year, and I still consider her a dear, dear friend. Throughout law school, I served as her teaching and research assistant for classes on human rights, human trafficking, and international law. We also collaborated on her Fullbright work and countless presentations and projects.

Professor Nagle trained me in the art of ethics—of caring for people and doing what’s right—and in using the law as a tool to accomplish good things and as a tool to better people’s lives. She trained me to never forget “my moral compass” and has challenged me every day since to remember the spirit behind our work. Professor Nagle would push me to co-facilitate panels, UN live sessions in support of women, and to expand far beyond my comfort zone. She equipped me for a career and life in effective advocacy and allyship. She also welcomed me into her community, supported me through law school and beyond, and has been an invaluable friend and mentor to this day.

My second semester also brought another pivotal experience. I was sitting in tort law; my professor was Professor Peter Lake, and I had no idea at the time, but Professor Lake was the Director (and still is the Director) of Stetson’s Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy.

Anyway, he was teaching, and he gave a quiz in tort law. I answered all the questions, I turned them in, and I guess he and his TA reviewed them after class. So we come back to class for the next meeting, and he goes, “I just have to ask: which one of you put this answer on the quiz?” There was a question, and the answer was the emergency doctrine because it was from the Cordas case [Cordas v. Peerless Transportation Co.]. I answered something completely different that I thought sounded good and truthfully was somewhat confident in, and I raised my hand sheepishly.

And he said, “Mr. Bowers, can you tell me where in that tort book you found your answer?”

I said, “Professor Lake, I don’t know where I found it, but I’m pretty confident it’s in there.”

He said, “Mr. Bowers, it’s not tort law.”

And I said, “Well, maybe it’s in constitutional law, but I’m pretty confident that it’s the doctrine you’re looking for.” And he just cracked up so hard, because I just stuck with it!

He used to joke that that was the moment he decided I might be a good fit at the Center. He told me afterwards, “You played it like a pro, and you just went with the punches. You weren’t embarrassed—you were just playing along with me, and I loved it.” 

The next year he hired me as his teaching assistant, and I became a teaching fellow and a research fellow for the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy. That was what propelled my career into higher education. 

I worked with him for about two years at the Center, and we still talk almost every day. We’re very good friends.

How did the Higher Ed Law Center shape your experience once you started working there?

I joined the Center, and it shaped me by just throwing me into the deep end. I wasn’t familiar with education law, but soon I was reading every case that came out, I was helping plan the conference, I was talking to our subject matter experts, I was supporting organizing the conference with the Center and its wonderful team, etc.

The Center and Professor Lake taught me a really important lesson really early on: I was a perfectionist, and I would stress about things. I’d be working on summarizing cases, helping organize the conference, and I would apologize a lot for mistakes, but Professor Lake would look at me and say, “We don’t apologize; we quality control. So put your apology in the apology jar and let’s do quality control.”

That Center team created an environment where it was safe to make mistakes, but they pushed me to learn more than I ever thought I could. They gave me responsibility for many things. I was empowered to publish with the Florida Bar Association’s Education Law Committee. And they understood me and cared about me as a person. I always knew that Professor Lake and the Center had my back.

What part of your experience at Stetson would you say best trained you for the work you’re doing now?

I always tell people the three most critical parts of my Stetson Law journey were my fellowships with Professor Lake, my assistantships with Professor Nagle, and then working for the Veterans Law Institute with Professor Stacy-Rae Simcox. She taught me how to manage clients, how to be a legal writer, and how to be a lawyer in the practical sense.

I took an administrative law course with Professor Simcox which was one of my top three favorite courses in law school. She talked to me during that class and said, “Hey, why don’t you look at doing a Certified Legal Internship (CLI) with the Veterans Law Institute?”

So I signed up, and as a CLI you basically practice law under the supervision of another lawyer. I had a caseload of five or six clients who were veterans looking to get their benefits from the VA. She taught me how to do client intake, how to manage client expectations, how to communicate well with clients, and how to communicate well with colleagues in a legal environment. She also truly trained me how to be a legal writer.

I was so insecure about my legal writing before doing that internship, and she pushed me to write and write and write—and to write where it mattered, because it was going out in the mail to clients and the VA. She really pushed me to be better as a legal writer and practitioner. It was an absolutely incredible experience.

What would you say was the most challenging course you took in law school?

For me, it was my first semester’s Legal Research and Writing class. That was the hardest course for me. It was so new to me. Coming from an education and history background, I was so accustomed to a different style of writing, of organization, of even thinking, and making that pivot to legal writing and legal organizational writing was very difficult for me.

After that I committed to taking a course every semester of my law school career that required a writing component to make sure that I challenged myself to be a better legal writer.

What did you do after graduating?

It’s been pretty linear. I graduated from Stetson, then took a job as a law clerk for Wood Smith Henning & Berman in Tampa, which was incredible. I clerked for them after graduation. After a few months, Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN reached out to me, brought me up for an interview, and offered me a job as an Assistant Vice President for Academic and Student Support Services with a broad portfolio—including compliance, Title IX, and student affairs. So I graduated from Stetson in May of 2021, clerked for a few months, then became an AVP in September!

I served at LMU for almost three years then joined Grand River Solutions in March of 2024. Since my time at Stetson working on the higher ed conference, I had been introduced to the unrivaled team of Title IX, equity, and higher education compliance professionals at Grand River—namely Jody Shipper and some of my Stetson friends who went on to work with her. Jody welcomed me to Grand River Solutions, and it’s been an incredible and rewarding journey.

What advice would you give to people deciding whether or not to go to law school?

If you’re considering law school, just do it. It’s an investment that you’ll never regret, whether you go into the practice of law or whether you go into a J.D. advantage career like compliance, regulatory affairs, etc. like I did.

"A J.D. is one of the few graduate degrees that broadens your opportunities and doesn’t narrow them."

It’s so versatile. It’s so multidisciplinary. In my seat right now, I truly believe that the J.D. has opened up more doors for me than I could have imagined. It’s an investment in your professional trajectory that you will not regret.