During his final year at the Dedman School of Law at SMU in1967, 25-year-old Mike Boone took a securities law seminar.
One day after class, Boone’s professor, Richard Haynes,having opened a solo law office in Dallas three years earlier,asked him to stay late so they could talk.
From that after-class meeting came an interview for Boone, andfrom the interview came Boone’s first job fresh out of lawschool; working with Haynes.
And from that pairing, over the past three decades, has emergedthe largest law firm in Dallas and the fifth-largest in Texas;Haynes and Boone.
Boone spoke about the journey and the leadership skills itinvolved on Tuesday night in the Hughes-Trigg theater, part of thefirst of four Leadership Summits hosted by President Gerald Turnerthis school year.
“Who runs things makes a difference,” Boone saidTuesday night, speaking to about 100 students from variouson-campus leadership organizations.
“[To lead] is sacrificial, it’s selfless, it takespain sometimes and it’s not easy. But it makes such a bigdifference in people if it’s done right.”
President Turner hopes to foster such leadership at each summitby inviting a person of high stature in the Dallas area to speakabout how he or she has made the climb from college student tolocal leader.
As evident through Turner’s introduction to the speech,Boone fit the bill.
“Besides being known for his work in law, Boone is one ofthe two or three most important civic leaders in Dallas,”Turner said.
“For most big things happening in Dallas, you’llfind Mike Boone involved in there somewhere.”
Boone’s accomplishments in
Dallas civic life include serving on the Dallas Citizen’sCouncil, working for the Highland Park Education Foundation andsitting on the SMU Board of Trustees. In 1990, the Dedman School ofLaw named him a Distinguished Alumnus, and in 1996, SMU did thesame. Currently, Haynes and Boone is leading the research behindthe proposed $250 million Dallas Center for the PerformingArts.
Despite all his accolades, Boone stressed the importance ofselflessness in good leaders.
“You have to learn to control your ego,” Boone said.”It takes teamwork, so sometimes you have to learn to playsecond fiddle and let somebody else take all the glory.”
Boone said this principle has proven true throughout his careerin law, even as the size of the Haynes and Boone team has grownfrom two to more than 450 lawyers.
“Greed and arrogance, those are two things that bring downlaw firms,” Boone said. “The first time you wake upMonday morning and you think ‘I’m the best’ or‘My law firm’s the best,’ that’s where youstart to go downhill.”
Leadership as a whole has declined in recent years, Boone said,leading to what he called a “scarcity” of leaders inthe United States.
But Boone hopes that the rich history of leader-cultivation atSMU will aid this situation.
“SMU has a great legacy of turning out leaders,”Boone said. “This university, if there’s one thing itdoes very well, it’s that.”
Maintaining that legacy by continuing to have leaders speak oncampus was one of the ideas behind the creation of the leadershipsummits. President Turner and Jim Caswell, vice president forStudent Affairs, discussed the idea for a couple of years beforethey decided in early June to try to implement it.
“We have such a vast and rich group of leaders oncampus,” Caswell said, listing the Hunt Leadership Scholars,the President’s Scholars and the Emerging Leaders Program asexamples. “Instead of each group asking for a speaker to comespeak to them, this way we can draw them all together and just havea couple of speakers a semester.”
Many of those involved in leadership development on campus areglad to see the launch of a series like the summits —including Kathleen Hugley-Cook, director of the Hunt LeadershipsScholars Program.
“A lot of students can learn from the trustees and alumniwho are in top leadership positions,” Hugley-Cook said.”It’s a great opportunity to see where the pathways ofleadership can take you.”
President Turner hopes to show a variety of such paths as thesummits take place over the next year. “We’re trying toget a broad range of areas [in speakers],” Turner said.”Not just people from business and politics, but also thosein things like religious organizations and socialservices.”
Upcoming
The second of Turner’s four leadership summits this yearwill take place when Ray L. Hunt, member of the Board of Trusteesand CEO of Hunt Oil Company, speaks at 4 p.m., Nov. 7 in theHughes-Trigg Theater. Two other summits are in planning for thespring semester.
While the program has been aimed at student leadership groupsthus far, all interested students are invited to attend.
