Convo: Alex Wellen May 13, 2005

Alex Wellen, author of ?Barman: Ping-Pong, Pathos & Passing the Bar,? will give a convocation address titled ?What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?? at 10:50 on Friday, May 13 at the Carleton College Skinner Memorial Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

Wellen?s book chronicles his journey from law school to passing the bar exam, a time he calls the second most important gestation period of his life. The journey was sparked by his invention of a unique table tennis paddle in 1996 and his desire for a patent. During this period he fantasized about the life of a high-powered Manhattan attorney. However, Wellen faced a difficult road and felt hampered by the fact that he hadn?t gone to a big-name law school like Harvard or Yale. The book has been praised by many as an accurate and entertaining account of the experience of many aspiring lawyers. ?Wellen is an authentic voice from the vast group of perfectly wonderful, yet under-appreciated law schools,? said John J. Osborn Jr., the author of ?The Paper Chase,? a well-known book about the life of a Harvard law student. ?Barman shows us the life that most lawyers really live.?

Wellen came up with his table tennis paddle design while a student at Rutgers College of Engineering in New Jersey, and after he was turned away by a patent attorney, Wellen decided to become a lawyer himself. After graduating with honors from Rutgers, he entered the Temple School of Law in Philadelphia where he served as an editor on the law review and as student bar president before receiving his law degree cum laude. He began his career working on intellectual property and antitrust litigation in New York, but soon began to branch out. He has contributed to multiple news outlets both in print and on television, including NBC, ABC, CNN and MSNBC. He served as executive producer and co-host of ?CyberCrime,? an Emmy-winning show on TechTV. Wellen also has interned with the U.S. Attorney?s Office Criminal Division in Philadelphia and two federal court judges, testified before Congress, and currently works as a freelance television producer and writer at the Writer?s Grotto in San Francisco, where he also tutors at 826 Valencia, a writing program for middle and high school students.

For more information and disability accommodations, call Carleton?s college relations office at (507) 646-4308.