Nicholaus “Nick” Mills ’19 is not your typical Cornell Law School graduate. A first-generation Jamaican immigrant who set his sights on graduating first in his class and a clerkship at the United States Supreme Court, he achieved both. He credits his parents for instilling in him a belief that with hard work and faith, anything is within reach.
“I was raised with the belief that every person is given unique abilities and must invest those talents wisely,” says Mills. His decisions on where to invest his talents took him from playing Division One soccer at Oral Roberts University, to working for a non-profit in Jerusalem, to Cornell’s J.D./M.B.A. program (graduating with a 4.0048 GPA), to becoming a “young deal-junkie” in Wachtell Lipton’s corporate law department, to clerkships at every level of the federal courts, including for Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
“Nick understands, consummately, that he’s been lavished with an abundance of rare gifts. But it’s made Nick indebted, not entitled. He truly wants to leverage his immense talents for good,” says Hon. Don R. Willett, Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where Mills clerked upon graduating from Cornell Law. “Nick tackled clerking with such a strong sense of duty and gratitude. He viewed the opportunity as such a rich honor—a calling—and he poured his whole heart into it—as he does with everything he undertakes. He carpes every diem. He has one gear—full throttle.”
Mills’ path wasn’t easy. The son of a Jamaican father and Norwegian-Canadian mother, he was raised in Waxhaw, North Carolina, where he didn’t look like others. “I never experienced overt discrimination, but grew up with a sense of not fully belonging.” Perhaps that’s why he honed another natural talent—empathy—to build friendships everywhere.
“Nick stands out, first, because of his personality,” says classmate Josh Rhee ’19. “He has a big energy vibe and is always trying to lift up people around him. He never puts forth his own accomplishments. He always asks about the other person first.”
“My dream has always been to help people solve complex problems, and that’s why I decided to pursue both law and business degrees, figuring one of those paths would provide the challenges I was looking for,” says Mills.
Constitutional law scholar Nelson Tebbe, the Jane M.G. Foster Professor of Law, says Mills’ maturity was immediately evident. “He came in knowing who he was and what he wanted to get out of law school,” says Tebbe. “Nick had a kind of centeredness and a judgment that not everybody has when they come to law school. He was grounded and that helped him a lot.”
“Nick was an intense studier,” says Garrett Gerber ’19. “He’s always looking for a challenge. My way of studying was to get the 95 percent of what was needed. Nick’s way of studying was to get 100 percent. But he had a sense of humor about it.”
Intent on scaling new heights while at Cornell Law, Mills approached alumna Alyssa Fontaine ’06 about taking him on as an intern when she was general counsel and executive vice president at Tompkins Financial Corporation. “After a couple of conversations (each ending with a polite ‘no’), I was finally persuaded by Nick’s genuine interest and infectious enthusiasm,” says Fontaine. “As the first-ever intern on my team, there was no blueprint for the program. No matter, as Nick quickly integrated himself into our workflow.”
At Cornell Law, Mills earned more than a dozen academic awards, was a teaching assistant in three classes, and an articles editor on the Cornell Law Review. On the advice of his professors, he secured the clerkship with Judge Willett, who helped him achieve his next goal, an interview with Justice Kavanaugh (“What would be the next mountain to climb? Getting a Supreme Court clerkship!”). It was March 2020 when Kavanaugh confirmed a slot for July of 2023. “I love my country and the opportunity to serve at the highest level possible was the privilege of a lifetime,” says Mills.
His clerkship with Judge Willett would be the perfect training ground. “Clerking is intellectually stimulating. It’s consequential. And it enlarges your legal toolkit,” says Judge Willett. “I tell my clerks that it’s a magical combination to love what you do and to believe that it matters. Clerking checks both boxes. Clerking also underscores the majesty of the law.”
The following year, in his first corporate law job as an associate with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, Mills served on teams that structured and executed billions of dollars worth of public and private market transactions. But on his downtime, he found new opportunities to serve, creating I’m Frustrated dot Org to provide informal legal guidance to individuals who cannot afford an attorney. Colleagues like Yosef Schaffel were supportive. “A lot of lawyers informally help out friends,” says Schaffel. “Nick asked why we are limiting our help. I admire him for going beyond what a typical lawyer might do and creating something more structured.”
The organization helped “Ana,” a New York City small business owner, secure a permanent visa after it was initially denied, following informal advocacy from Mills, Schaffel, and others. “I think certain people are born to help others,” says Ana. “Nick is generous with his time and a very positive person. He worked a miracle for me.”
After Wachtell, Mills clerked for Hon. Rachel P. Kovner in the Eastern District of New York, where 400+ cases were on the docket at any given time. Says Kovner: “A clerkship is great preparation for working on the Supreme Court—and for starting out as a lawyer in general—because you see the entire spectrum of legal work: big cases, small cases, civil cases, criminal cases, cases litigated by pro se parties and cases litigated by fancy law firms.”
At the Supreme Court, Mills found a “remarkably collegial environment” that superseded politics. Though cases touch on political matters, he says the justices are guided by their judicial philosophy. “They do what they think is right as a matter of law,” says Mills. “My job was to air out all the possible issues for Justice Kavanaugh. He had me drill down to the crux of the issue and what really matters. It was a privilege to work for and learn from him, a remarkable jurist who has dedicated his career to serving our great nation. All the justices got along, as did the clerks. We had this view that we were faithful agents of our bosses and we separated law from politics.”
“Even among a group of very high-achieving people, Nick’s work ethic was unparalleled,” says A.J. Jeffries, who clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy. “As he was thinking through cases, he would write countless drafts of bench memos, often adopting different perspectives, to make sure he’d thought about every facet of the case.” And true to form, Mills brought his social skills to the Court. “The personality that most often pursues and obtains a Supreme Court clerkship is an introvert who enjoys the isolation of appellate practice,” says Jeffries. “We were all fortunate that Nick is cut from a different cloth.”
“It was this attention to people, coupled with his very strong work ethic, that made Nick unique,” says Benjamin Daus, who clerked for Justice John Roberts. “He organized the clerk basketball league at the Court, and also got to know all of the police, maintenance crew, housekeeping crew, and other Court staff.”
Having scaled that mountain, Mills now moves on to another, the prestigious firm of Gibson Dunn, where he will join the firm’s high-stakes commercial litigation group focused on technology companies and “on matters where there is no margin for error.”
“Nick’s sterling credentials, talent, experience, and magnetic personality make him a rare find indeed,” says Helgi C. Walker, partner at the firm.
~Eileen Korey
