Hosted by the Office of Career Advisement

 Featured Panelists:

Justin Alvarez (’97)
The Alvarez Firm

A graduate of the College, Justin Alvarez is the founder of The Alvarez Firm, a law corporation, where he focuses on business and real estate transactions, as well as estate planning. He earned his J.D. and his MBA from the University of Notre Dame. The Alvarez Firm assists business owners and managers at all stages of a business’s life cycle, from advice on forming a corporation to guidance in selling a business after a lifetime of development. Mr. Alvarez takes the time to understand the nuances of a new business or business transaction. He works hand-in-hand with business owners to anticipate issues, examine potential challenges from legal and business perspectives, and develop solutions that help protect the owners and their enterprises. A seasoned real estate attorney, Mr. Alvarez provides real estate documents suited to the transaction’s needs, whether buying raw land or developed, and whether the price tag is $300,000 or $30 million. In addition, Mr. Alvarez provides estate planning services to a wide range of business and personal clients.

Prior to establishing The Alvarez Firm, Mr. Alvarez served as assistant general counsel at Griffin Industries, a homebuilder and land developer in Calabasas, California. Before joining Griffin Industries, Mr. Alvarez was an associate at Gary R. King and Associates in San Juan Capistrano, California. There he assisted a variety of businesses and their principals with estate planning, business and real estate transactional matters, and claims and litigation handling. Previously he was an associate for the managing counsel of the Suzuki Motor Corporation of America, where he spent the majority of his time assisting in the oversight of the Suzuki v. Consumers Union (Consumer Reports) lawsuit.

James Bemis
Montague DeRose and Associates, LLC

A principal at Montague DeRose and Associates, LLC., James Bemis received B.A. degrees in economics and environmental studies from UCSB and an MBA from UCLA.

Mr. Bemis began his finance career in 1979, while employed by the City of Oxnard, completing more than a dozen financings totaling more than $500 million. He worked for a dozen years as a commercial bank officer, providing credit and liquidity for two international banks. In 1993 he joined the municipal investment banking firm of E. J. De La Rosa and Co. and was responsible for business development and client relationships.

He joined Montague DeRose and Associates in 1999, following nearly 20 years of municipal finance experience as an issuer, investment banker, and commercial lender. He has participated in over $100 billion in bond issues and financings for a wide variety of government and private entities. He is considered the municipal finance industry’s premier financial advisor in variable rate debt, having served as financial advisor on some of the largest variable rate bond programs in municipal finance.

Mr. Bemis has negotiated letters of credit and other liquidity facilities for the State of California, the State of Washington, the California Department of Water Resources, the Port of Oakland, the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and many other municipal issuers.

Nathan Haggard (’99)
Apple, Inc.

A graduate of the College, Nathan Haggard is a systems engineer at Apple, Inc., and manages the technical relationship with some of Apple’s biggest enterprise customers such as Disney, Amgen, and Toyota.

Before Apple, Mr. Haggard ran a digital video consulting and production company for four years while teaching editing classes at UCLA Extension. He loves making movies; his short films have played in the LA Shorts Film Festival, and he has written and produced trailers for Showtime Networks.