Public Interest News

Burgess will serve as a law clerk for Judge Travis McDonough '92 of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. She is a Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey Public Interest Scholar and a Justice-Moore Family Public Interest Scholar. Read More

Judge Jackson is the first Supreme Court justice whose prior experience includes work as a federal public defender. Mayeux asserts that "given that several...justices previously worked as federal prosecutors, Jackson's confirmation injects a welcome measure of professional balance to the lineup" and that Jackson is the "first justice since Thurgood Marshall with meaningful criminal defense experience." Read More

Baskaran directs the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law. Her lecture, scheduled in Flynn Auditorium from 12:30 to 1:30 April 11, will address water insecurity and its links to redlining. Read More

Song is an assistant professor of law at University of Calfornia Irvine. Her scholarship examines the deployment of policing authority and its effects on racial minority and other marginalized groups. Her lecture, scheduled from 12:30 to 1:30, Friday, April 1, is free and open to the public and available via Zoom. Read More

As a law clerk at FERC, Philip Morel works at the intersection of law and energy policy. He joined FERC's Office of Administrative Law Judges as a clerk after graduation. Read More

Chris Slobogin, who directs the law school's Criminal Justice Program, moderated "Reform for Redemption," a March 18 discussion on criminal justice reform with Cyntoia Brown-Long, who was incarcerated as a juvenile, and former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, who granted Brown clemency. Watch the event, which was sponsored by the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, now. Read More

With support from the scholarship, Harris worked this summer as a consumer law intern for the Legal Aid Society for the District of Columbia supporting low-income clients whose income was negatively affected by the pandemic. Garrison Scholars receive supplemental scholarships and summer stipends to help them launch public interest law careers. Read More

Barsky's book asks what great works of literature can teach us about the plight of immigrants and refugees. Read More

The event, “Reform for Redemption: Cyntoia Brown Long and Gov. Bill Haslam on Criminal Justice Reform and the Power of Mercy,” will be held in Langford Auditorium and livestreamed at 6 p.m. March 15. Now an author and advocate, Brown was a trafficking victim when she was convicted of murder at 16. She was later granted clemency by Gov. Haslam. Professor Slogobin will moderate a discussion about criminal justice reform. The public is invited to attend in person or virtually. Read More

Su is a nationally recognized expert on workers’ rights and civil rights who served as secretary for the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency before her appointment as deputy secretary of labor. Her talk, "Fulfilling the Unfulfilled Promise of Racial and Economic Justice," will draw on her trailblazing career as a civil rights and workers' rights attorney. Read More