Charles Hack

Professor

“To me, teaching is an honor.”

Charles Hack holds a couple of the hot tickets in demand in the business world: a law degree and an MBA. But he prefers running his own “shop” over joining the corporate ranks. “I have my own law office,” he says. “And the independence that it gives me is well worth the agony of having to carry the ball by myself. I can make my practice what I want it to be.”

The practice of law has been good to Charles. And he likes to bring his experiences from the court room into the classroom. “In all the classes I teach, I bring in some of the everyday occurences that I run into in my practice,” he says. “As a teacher, I like to put the technical together with some passion for the craft. And when you can do that, people know you’re working.”

“I love the academic environment,” Charles says, “and I do whatever I can to push people, to help them go as far as they can in law.” But he has one goal in particular these days. “I’d really like to see SMC renew the paralegal program,” he says. “I see that as an opportunity for a community college to stretch as far as it can in the legal area. We can’t have a law school,” he continues. “But we can have a legal program that’s a prestigious adjunct to the overall educational goals here.”

Charles and his wife have three children, “and one on the way.” And at the end of days that all too frequently don’t have enough hours in them, the talented teacher and attorney enjoys another role, that of father. “For me,” he says, “kicking back means just gathering the kids around me.”

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