The Arizona Attorney: Rob Warzel

As Rob Warzel, BCom/13, was completing his law degree at Arizona State University, he realized how his business degree from Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business gave him a different perspective on issues.

“So many lawyers come from political science backgrounds or English backgrounds. Those each have an advantage to this profession, but I think coming from a business background in undergrad does give me a little bit of a different perspective as a lawyer,” said Rob.

“I have something of a greater understanding of how a business works on a day-to-day basis because of my time at Sprott. I think what I learned at Sprott, just going through the education program, helped me understand in the long run what it actually means to be in business, how that works and what that looks like. It translates into how I can help as their attorney now.”

Rob was admitted to the Arizona State Bar in November. He now works as an associate at Ryley Carlock and Applewhite, which specializes in business law.

“Anything business does, the law touches in some way shape or form. For any clients who come our way, we try to be a full solution law firm,” Rob said.

His journey to pursue law school started when he was an undergraduate student at Sprott. During the summers he was part of the Federal Student Work Experience Program where he worked as a student border guard with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

“Simultaneously while doing my business degree I was working with customs. I did a little work on the commercial side there, which weirdly interplayed with law, international trade, and criminal enforcement at the same time,” explained Rob.

After considering going into law enforcement, Rob realized his real interest was in business trade. After graduation, he worked for a year helping set up the CBSA portion of the Canada Post processing plant in Richmond, B.C. while he applied for law school. With a dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship, Rob was interested in studying in the U.S., which led to his decision to move to Phoenix.

Before starting law school, Rob already had experience with debating from high school and Sprott through JDCC, one of Canada’s largest interuniversity case competitions.

“My first year at Sprott was the first year they ran Sprosh. Right off the bat there was a great community feel to the school,” Rob remembered. “I was struck by how connected and awesome and friendly everybody across the whole school was—how everyone was open and wanted to help each other. I think naturally I wanted to be part of that community and wanted to get involved. The very first opportunity that came up was JDCC.”

Rob was part of the social team for his first year of JDCC, and then was on the debate team for the following two years. He also led the Sprott Business Students’ Society (SBSS) as VP External for a year.

“I think the long-term takeaway from that is you can’t do it alone,” Rob shared. “In work, in life, it’s always a team effort and a team atmosphere. You need your support network and people you can rely on and I think Sprott was a good early introduction into that.”