Lauren Buckner ’99: Block planning a life

As an entrepreneur with multiple businesses, Lauren Buckner ’99 is often asked how she juggles it all. Her solution is to block plan her life.

“I just mimic Cornell. I time block and I day block. I don’t touch every business every day. I have systems and automation in place and an assistant,” she says. “In life you don’t always have a lot of time, and Cornell taught me how to consume a lot of information at one time and how to mentally organize it.”

Buckner is a Washington, D.C.-based real estate development and business attorney. After dedicating 17 years to law firms and serving as an assistant attorney general, she transitioned to the role of founder and owner of Buckner Consulting. Through her consulting firm, Buckner empowers women to build strong businesses on a solid foundation. Her entrepreneurial pursuits are expansive and include Body by Buckner, her health and wellness company, and managing a diverse real estate investment portfolio. 

None of these careers was on her radar when she made an overnight bus trip to Cornell from St. Louis as a high school senior. She found a community at Cornell and felt like she was in a movie, complete with a castle. 

An early disappointment in her first year on campus changed her life. She failed the German proficiency exam after studying the language for six years. She decided to start over with Spanish, which led her to Professor Sally Farrington-Clute. She encouraged Buckner and prepared her to go to Guatemala in her junior year, sparking her love for Latin America and the language. Professor of Spanish Carol Lacy-Salazar and her husband, Lecturer Hernan Salazar, a native of Bolivia, further encouraged her, and by senior year Buckner was in Bolivia for two blocks.

After graduating with majors in Spanish and psychology, Buckner moved to Bolivia and stayed for two years teaching, dancing professionally, and appearing on the cover of three magazines. She returned to the U.S. and soon entered Saint Louis University School of Law. But even that did not go according to script. 

During her second year of law school she fostered her newborn and 3-year-old nephews. Though people thought she couldn’t do it, she graduated from law school as a single mom. She adopted the boys a week later.

“I used every skill that I had in my life to do that,” she says. “I just did what I needed to do, and then I went on to build this life. Everything I do is based on helping other people, serving other people, making sure other people feel better—whether it’s that they have a better business, they have a safe home because I’m working with developers, or motivating young girls of color with health and wellness.”

Buckner knows what it’s like to need that help. When she was 15 her mother died and she was separated from her siblings. It wasn’t until she arrived at Cornell that she felt safe again.

“I lacked some love, I lacked some support … and then I found this community of people at Cornell who loved me and saw value in me,” she recalls. “Cornell is where I experienced my happiness. I felt really safe there. The best of the best people from everywhere came there.”