During his spring break as a senior in high school, Jon Ballis ’91 decided to visit his two friends at Lehigh. He played basketball in Highland Park, Illinois, with twin brothers Peter ’90 and Adam Rudman ’90.
At that point, Ballis was committed to attending the University of Michigan, having already paid his deposit, but it was a consolation prize. His sights had been set on Dartmouth, where he’d been deferred.
With his fate set, he caught a flight to Bethlehem. Waiting at the airport was Joe Sterrett ’76 ’78G ’03P ’05P ’07P ’09P. The future dean of athletics, Sterrett then worked in admissions and took it upon himself to greet Ballis as well as set up a few meetings with professors.
Ballis took it all in. Those meetings, fun with close friends, and a deeply caring community. That’s when he realized his fate had changed. Lehigh felt like him.
“I felt so comfortable here,” he says. “This place was for me.”
By the end of his weekend, Ballis completed a one-page application in Sterrett’s office and was accepted on the spot. When he arrived back home, he told his parents that he was going to Lehigh.
Taking such chances seem to define the key moments in Ballis’ life, despite him seeing those risks as completely out of character.
Lehigh was that first out-of-character risk … which has made all the difference in his path forward to Harvard, family, and today, where he leads the largest law firm in the country.
Lehigh Days
His days on South Mountain were meaningful. Ballis played pickup basketball with faculty, provided color commentary on WLVR FM for the men’s varsity basketball games, and pledged Theta Delta Chi, where he served as treasurer. Along the way he made lifelong friends.
Those great experiences socially were matched by great experiences academically. He had wonderful professors. They were smart and influential in their fields, but rather than tout those accomplishments, they put their emphasis on students.
One of real significance was Richard Matthews, professor of political science, who is just entering retirement after a 36-year career. Ballis recently created an award in Matthews’ honor, given to a top-ranking student in political science who has plans to continue their education in graduate school, law school, or another education program.
Ballis recalls their first meeting in a political theory course. The students were discussing Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Matthews commanded his classes. It wasn’t a lecture format; instead he teased out ideas and masterfully engaged students.
As the discussion around Plato moved to equality between the sexes, a student made a snarky comment about male-female relationships. Matthews pounced, calling out the student on his small-minded thinking and insulting beliefs.
Ballis loved this moment — the real conversations and grit, the space to make mistakes and grow.
It pushed him to excel and persevere over four years. A great example of that was his internship in Washington, D.C. He spent a semester in the capital and had arranged an internship in international trade. Upon arriving, he learned that his role was given to someone else.
He took it as an opportunity to trust another door would open. That’s how he landed a research assistant role to the former Moscow Bureau chief at The New York Times. After a few months immersed in the perestroika political reform movement that ushered in glasnost, Ballis returned to Lehigh to pursue Russian history, politics, and language classes and write his senior thesis on the Soviet presidency.
These pursuits led him to become a Rhodes Scholar nominee and receive some stellar recommendations to Harvard Law School.
“The professors put all their chips on the table, gambling on me,” he says. “It was an honor to have the weight of the Lehigh academic community behind me.”
When a letter from Harvard arrived, his buddy opened it and shared the good news of Ballis’ acceptance.
“It was that sense of community that helped during successes and hardships,” he says. “I spent breaks and long weekends with friends at their homes. They surrounded me when my father faced a health scare. They truly became my family.”
Two More Key Risks
Success continued. First, personally. Ballis took a chance on a blind date. He was slated to fly to St. Louis for a business meeting in his fledgling law career. With that meeting on Monday, he decided to go down a day early to meet Susan, who was in medical school. When his business meeting was moved at the last minute to New York City, he still flew that Sunday to St. Louis to go on that date — a fact he didn’t admit to her until well after they were married.
That out-of-character decision worked. Today, he and Susan have three wonderful and successful children.
“Sometimes you have to take a chance and trust your gut,” he says. “That’s the advice I give my children.”
Success found him again after a professional risk. It was when he made the difficult decision to leave his prior law firm to join Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where today he serves as chairman.
While he worries that it can sound self-deprecating, he talks about good fortune and serendipity.
“Sometimes the stars align,” he says. “There are moments when there is a crack in the doorway, and you are lucky enough to run through.”
Of course, he has worked hard and listened well and been guided by fantastic mentors. As a leader though, he knows the job is about those around him. It’s like a coach’s relationship with players or a professor’s with students.
So for his current team at Kirkland & Ellis, he tries to give credit to others and absorbs the hits. He took the helm there in 2020 as COVID-19 changed the nature of business. That crucial moment allowed him to step out of the shadows of past leaders and make his own impact at the firm.
These impacts come with sacrifices. At times he missed games and recitals despite his desire to be a hands-on dad. So rigor has been his mantra, pushing hard to balance a full life. It’s the rigor he learned at Lehigh.
“There is something different about Lehigh students,” he says. “They are so well balanced. Smart and social. Elite workers but also regular men and women. They balance IQ and EQ. And in the business world out here, having that balance is essential to success.”
It seems that his EQ has helped Ballis know when the risk is worth the reward.
