In November 2015, Charlotte Law 3L Angela Schulz (Schulz) was responsible for the involvement of 53 Charlotte Law students and Charlotte Law Advocates Against the Trafficking of Humans (CAATH) student organization with a nationwide human trafficking legislation. See “Charlotte Law, Angela Schulz, supports Nationwide Human Trafficking Legislation” for more details. Schulz got involved with human trafficking advocacy for the same reason that she chose to go to law school—“to be a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves”
Schulz is native of Pewaukee Wisconsin, and a 2006 graduate of Virginia Tech with degrees in English and German. After college, Schulz moved to North Carolina to accept her first offer with a German manufacturer in Mooresville, NC where she worked as an Inside Sales Representative processing orders and acting as the liaison between United States clients and the manufacturing facility in Germany. In 2008, Schulz accepted a subsequent position with a second German manufacturing company that allowed her to not only utilize her professional German language skills, but to travel around the country training architects and clients on her company’s products, semi-annually to the manufacturing facility in Germany, and for two years to Puerto Rico for a large project.
While traveling to and from Puerto Rico and Germany, the President of her company assigned her with the daunting task of preparing a white paper summarizing the anticipated impact of President Obama’s stimulus package for the company to utilize to forecast their U.S. manufacturing. This task involved reviewing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. After being exposed to international contracts, administrative law, and compliance through her experiences, Schulz realized that she not only had a passion for transactional work, but for further training in a field that would allow her to make a difference in a meaningful way in the local community. Despite traveling internationally and balancing 80+ hour work weeks, Schulz buckled down to study or the LSAT and applied to Charlotte Law as her first choice law school due to its close proximity to family members and network of friends. It also helped that “Charlotte was listed as one of the top 10 cities dealing with human trafficking issues, making it ripe for reform”, Schulz shared.
Schulz was admitted into Charlotte Law’s first Charlotte Edge class in Fall of 2013. Since being at Charlotte Law, Schulz has:
interned with Love146, an international human rights organization working to end child trafficking and exploitation through survivor care and prevention, engaging in transactional work and legislative research;
served as Teaching Assistant for Legal Writing I and Torts
served as Treasurer and Secretary for Phi Delta Phi (International Legal honors Fraternity)
worked as a writing consultant in the Legal Discourse Zone
Schulz is currently working as in-house legal intern at PCLS, a toxicology and pharmacogenetics lab in Rock Hill, South Carolina and is currently a member of the Property Law Journal. Most notably, Schulz is a member of the inaugural Charlotte Law Honors Class of 2016 (1 of 12 students out of a class of over 300).
“Everyone deserves an advocate, a ride or die, someone who will never give up on them, who insists that …that if you have to run the race, they’re going to run it with you” said Schulz. Schulz “believes in organizations that understand the power of encouragement and advocacy that we all need”. As a result, after law school, Schulz plans to sit for the North Carolina Bar and find a transactional job in international law or compliance, where she can provide legal support to local nonprofit organizations that work with trafficking survivors.