Part of what Ryan Haygood loves about being a lawyer is what he loved about his liberal arts education.

“You become well-versed in many different things — a Jack-of-all-trades,” said Haygood, a Fried Frank NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Fellow. The competitive, four-year fellowship goes to only one applicant each year.

One day, Haygood could be working on a school desegregation case. The next, he’ll be researching the finer points of securities fraud and insider trading.

The fellowship offers Haygood the best of both worlds by providing an opportunity to practice both general corporate and civil rights law. During his two-year stint at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson — one of the top 30 law firms in the U.S. specializing in corporate litigation — Haygood works on a variety of cases, including mergers and acquisitions and other commercial litigation matters. At the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, he will spend two years advocating for social and legal justice for underrepresented people, Haygood’s true passion.

At Fried Frank, Haygood regularly works 12-hour days. “One thing I’ve learned above all is perseverance; the ability to press on when what you really want is a good night’s sleep.”

Haygood received his J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law. He attended law school because he was both inspired by and a beneficiary of the legal and social changes made possible by civil rights attorneys. The first member of his family to attend college, Haygood said he received an excellent foundation for life, lawyering, and advocacy at CC. He was nominated for the Rhodes scholarship and became the college’s first-ever football player to earn academic and athletic All-American honors. Haygood graduated cum laude from Colorado College with a degree in political science and American history.

The small classes at CC were really important to me. They encouraged independent and critical thought and the ability to craft a well-reasoned argument skills that have served me well as a lawyer, Haygood said. The college's emphasis on writing has also been essential to my work.

He established himself as a student leader at CC by co-founding the Glass House, a permanent residential community that emphasizes cultural and ethnic diversity. He and his then-girlfriend, Shouse, had a vision for creating this multicultural theme house.

“We both grew up in Denver and initially experienced some culture shock when we came to college. The transition from a predominantly black neighborhood to a privileged, largely white community was a difficult one.” Haygood said. “Charity and I wanted the Glass House to provide a nurturing living environment for ethnic minority and supportive majority students and an opportunity for us to learn from one another.” During its first year of operation, the Glass House had black, white, Asian, Latino, and American Indian students living together and sharing evenings of dancing, live poetry, American Indian drumming, and all-campus lectures by well-known figures like Angela Davis and Bobby Seale.