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Experience · Leadership & Organizational Responsibility

Fraternity
Leadership

Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Mississippi State University — Executive Officer, Philanthropy Chair, IFC Board Member, and the man Zeta Tau Alpha chose to represent them before he had been on campus two months. Four roles. Four different groups. One consistent quality.

Why This Matters for Your Hiring Decision — Litigation requires leading people who do not have to follow you — clients who are skeptical, witnesses who are reluctant, opposing counsel who are adversarial, and juries who owe you nothing. The candidate who has already governed a large organization of peers, raised $13,000 for charity in a single semester, earned a university nomination to an institutional governance board, and been chosen to publicly represent an organization he had just met — has already demonstrated what that leadership looks like.

01

Overview

My leadership record at Mississippi State is not a single role padded into a résumé line. It is four distinct positions — each one representing a different form of trust extended by a different group of people.

Ethan Cain as Big Man on Campus contestant for ZTA

Big Man on Campus — chosen by Zeta Tau Alpha within his first two months on campus

Ethan Cain speaking on stage at Big Man on Campus event

Speaking on the main stage during the multi-day Greek system event

Ethan and Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity brothers

With Sigma Alpha Epsilon brothers at Mississippi State

Role I

Chapter Executive Officer

Organizational governance & leadership

Role II

Philanthropy Chair

$13,000 raised in one semester

Role III

IFC Hazing & Alcohol Prevention Board

Nominated by university staff

Role IV

Big Man on Campus

Chosen by ZTA to represent them — first 2 months on campus

Each of these roles was conferred by a different group: my own chapter members, the broader campus community I organized for philanthropy, university administrators who nominated me for the IFC board, and Zeta Tau Alpha sorority members who chose me to represent their chapter — within two months of my arriving on campus, from a different organization entirely. The pattern that emerges from those four independent decisions is not coincidence. It reflects a consistent quality of character, professionalism, and public presence that different people recognized from different angles.

For a firm evaluating a candidate, that pattern matters. It means the person in front of you has been tested repeatedly, in real and visible situations, by people who had nothing to gain from making the wrong call.

02

Chapter Executive Officer

Sigma Alpha Epsilon · MSU Chapter

Executive Officer

Organizational governance · Member accountability · External representation

Leadership

The hardest leadership is not leading people who must follow you. It is leading people who choose to — and keeping that choice intact through every hard decision you make.

As executive officer of the MSU chapter, I was responsible for the governance, direction, and morale of a large peer organization. These were young men with no institutional obligation to agree with my decisions, who voiced disagreement directly and publicly, and who were continuously evaluating whether the person in the leadership role deserved to be there. That environment demanded authority that came from somewhere other than a title. Consistency, credibility, the willingness to make hard calls and stand behind them — that was the only currency that worked.

My responsibilities included organizational governance, setting and enforcing standards of conduct, managing internal disputes, coordinating with university administration, and representing the chapter externally. All of this was happening simultaneously with a full academic course load, umpiring commitments, and the other leadership roles described on this page.

1

Making Unpopular Decisions

Every leadership role requires decisions that someone will not like. In a peer organization, those decisions are made in the open, among people you know personally. I learned to hold firm when the decision was right, to genuinely listen when criticism had merit, and to own the consequences of both without defensiveness.

2

Managing Internal Conflict

A chapter of young men with competing interests generates interpersonal conflict regularly. My role included mediating disputes — determining when formal resolution was required and when quiet diplomacy was better — while maintaining institutional integrity throughout.

3

Representing the Chapter Externally

The executive officer is the chapter's face to university administration, the broader Greek community, alumni, and the public. I developed the ability to speak on behalf of an organization I represented — not just my own views — and to navigate relationships with administrators holding real authority over our charter.

4

Holding Standards Under Social Pressure

Enforcing conduct standards against a friend, or against someone popular enough that enforcement was socially costly, tests any leader's integrity. The moment standards bend for the well-liked, authority over everyone else is compromised. That lesson — reinforced on the IFC board and in every practice context since — is direct preparation for the ethical obligations of legal practice.

03

Philanthropy Chair

Sigma Alpha Epsilon · MSU Chapter

Philanthropy Chair

Charitable fundraising · Event management · Community engagement

Results

The Philanthropy Chair owns the chapter's charitable work — identifying causes, designing events, coordinating volunteers, and producing measurable results. It is not an advisory role. It requires the same operational skills as any serious project management position: relationship development across organizations, persuasion, execution management, and accountability for outcomes.

$13,000 raised in a single semester

In one semester as Philanthropy Chair, I led fundraising efforts that generated $13,000 for charitable causes. That result required sustained organizational effort, relationship-building across the broader campus community, and the management of events and campaigns from conception through execution. The number does not happen without genuine work and genuine leadership applied consistently across weeks of effort.

The skills behind that number — picking a goal, building the infrastructure to reach it, keeping people moving who have other things to do, and actually delivering — are the same ones an associate needs to manage discovery in a complex case, coordinate experts before trial, or run a multi-attorney briefing project.

The Professional Translation

"Raising $13,000 in one semester required persuasion, organization, follow-through, and showing up week after week when it would have been easier not to. The context was charitable. The skill set is the same one you need to move a complex litigation matter from filing to resolution."

04

IFC Hazing & Alcohol Prevention Board

Interfraternity Council · Mississippi State University

Board Member — Hazing & Alcohol Prevention

University-nominated · Inter-organizational governance · Campus safety policy

Nominated

I was nominated to serve on the IFC Hazing and Alcohol Prevention Board by university staff — not elected by my fraternity chapter. That distinction is significant. When university administrators look across a campus of hundreds of Greek-affiliated students and identify who should represent the community in a governance role focused on safety and institutional accountability, they are making a considered judgment about character, professionalism, and trustworthiness. They chose me.

The IFC board operates at the intersection of university policy and chapter behavior. Its work involves setting standards, investigating potential violations, and making decisions that affect the standing of organizations across the Greek community. Serving on it required fluency in institutional policy, the ability to engage constructively with administrators and chapter representatives whose interests sometimes conflicted, and the willingness to uphold standards even when doing so created friction.

1

Credibility Across Institutional Lines

Being nominated by university administrators — rather than peers — reflects the kind of cross-institutional credibility that lawyers build with courts, opposing counsel, and sophisticated clients over careers. I was building it as an undergraduate, in a governance role where both the university and the Greek community had to trust me to operate with integrity.

2

Governance With Real Consequences

The board's decisions carry real consequences for real organizations. Applying institutional standards consistently, managing competing chapter interests, and upholding policies under pushback is direct preparation for the standards-based decision-making that governs legal practice — including the ethical obligations lawyers carry throughout their careers.

3

Preventive Compliance as a Competency

Hazing and alcohol prevention is not purely reactive — it requires building cultures of compliance before violations occur. Persuading organizations to voluntarily adopt safety practices is fundamentally a counseling and persuasion challenge, one with direct parallels to how litigators advise clients on regulatory compliance and risk management before disputes arise.

05

Big Man on Campus

Zeta Tau Alpha · Mississippi State University

ZTA's Chosen Representative — Big Man on Campus

Chosen by ZTA sorority · First semester on campus · Multi-day charitable competition

Chosen by ZTA

Big Man on Campus is a multi-day campus-wide charitable event at Mississippi State organized by Zeta Tau Alpha. Each participating sorority selects one man — from anywhere on campus — to be their representative throughout the competition. That representative participates in public events, engages the broader campus community, and represents the sorority to the entire student body across several days of charitable programming.

Zeta Tau Alpha chose me to represent their chapter within my first two months at Mississippi State. I was not chosen as a representative of ΣAE — I was chosen by an entirely separate organization, one that had no particular reason to know me yet, to be the face of their chapter in a public, campus-wide event. Within weeks of arriving on a new campus, before anyone there had much reason to know me, I had made an impression on people outside my own organization compelling enough that they trusted me to represent them publicly.

What strikes me about that is this: you can't manufacture that kind of impression. It either lands or it doesn't. The same thing happens when a young lawyer walks into a partner meeting or a first client introduction — people decide quickly whether this is someone they trust. I've been making that impression since before I had any credentials to back it up.

Why First Semester Matters

"Zeta Tau Alpha did not choose a ΣAE member to represent them. They chose a person — someone they had known for weeks, from a different organization — because something about the way he carried himself said: this is someone we trust to represent us. That quality of immediate credibility is precisely what clients, partners, and courts extend to lawyers who have earned it — and it is not always a credential you can build. Sometimes it is simply who you are."

The Big Man on Campus role required several days of public appearances, genuine engagement with the broader campus community, and the ability to represent something larger than yourself to an audience making real-time judgments. For a future litigator, these are not peripheral skills — they are the same ones required in a client pitch, a courtroom opening, or a first meeting with a new partner. The fact that I was demonstrating them in my first weeks of college, selected by people outside my own organization, is meaningful evidence of the public professional presence I bring to a legal career.

06

Why This Matters for Litigation

Direct Application to Large-Firm Litigation Practice

The Chapter Officer and the Associate

  • Four independent groups chose to trust me with responsibility. My own chapter. The broader campus I mobilized for philanthropy. University administrators. And a sorority that barely knew me. Each made an independent judgment. The consistency of that pattern across four different contexts tells you more about character than any single credential does.
  • Client management begins with peer management. Navigating the dynamics of a large, diverse peer organization — where authority is earned and continuously re-earned — is direct preparation for managing client relationships, co-counsel dynamics, and firm team coordination. None of them come with built-in deference.
  • Fundraising at scale demonstrates project management. $13,000 raised in one semester reflects the same organizational and persuasion skills required to manage a complex litigation matter from filing through resolution — setting objectives, coordinating resources, and delivering measurable results.
  • University nomination to a governance board signals cross-institutional credibility. The kind of trust university administrators extended to me for the IFC board is a preview of the trust judges, opposing counsel, and institutional clients extend to lawyers who have earned it. Building it in college creates a foundation that carries forward.
  • Public presence recognized immediately — by people who had no reason to choose me yet. ZTA choosing me within my first two months on campus confirmed that public professional presence — the comfort, polish, and engagement that effective litigators project — is not something I had to develop over years. It was there from the start, and has been refined through every leadership role since.
Peer Leadership Organizational Governance $13K Philanthropic Fundraising IFC Board — University Nominated Public Representation Standards Enforcement Coalition Building Sigma Alpha Epsilon · MSU