Even with law firm salaries skyrocketing, graduating Harvard Law School students will have trouble matching fellow 3L Rahim Oberholtzer’s $1.12 million earnings from two hours of work in January.
That’s when Oberholtzer became the biggest winner in television game show history on NBC’s Twenty One. But the 27-year-old Houston native had little time to celebrate: He took the red-eye back to campus for a final exam.
Appearances on the Today Show and rounds of congratulations from friends on campus followed the program’s airing. Oberholtzer said he also received an anxious call from his future employers at a Houston investment bank who wondered if he still planned on showing up for work in the fall.
“I already accepted the position before I won,” Oberholtzer said. “It worked out well. Now I can learn how to invest the money that I won.”
Oberholtzer said his winnings will help pay off student loans and family medical bills as well as possibly starting a scholarship at either Harvard Law School or his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin.
NBC Photo: David Burke