Earlier this month, Vanderbilt Law hosted Judge Sheila Calloway, BA‘91, JD‘94, for a discussion on her career in juvenile justice and her time at Vanderbilt Law. Calloway currently serves as the Judge for the Davidson County Juvenile Court, a position she has held since 2014. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Belmont University and Vanderbilt Law, where she teaches Trial Advocacy.
The Louisville, Kentucky, native started off her conversation explaining the origins of her career in law, a path she knew she wanted to take since elementary school.
“When I was in fourth grade, I wrote a paper that said, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a lawyer, and I want to help people,” Calloway said. “It was something that stuck with me.”
Calloway went on to get her undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University in Communications with a minor in Political science. “I majored in Communications [because I] hated the thought of politics at the time,” Calloway said. “[I] did actually minor in Political Science, because I thought I better have something on my resume to make sure that law school[s] know I really am interested.”
After graduating from Vanderbilt, Calloway returned to campus at Vanderbilt Law. During her 1L summer, she interned at a small firm, where she was able to get a taste of all areas of law. She eventually decided that criminal law ranked as the most interesting and exciting area she experienced. Later, her time in clinic confirmed her decision.
“As a third year I had to argue a case in the criminal court of appeals [and] my client’s conviction was overturned,” Calloway said. “[They] got time served and I was sold on Criminal Law.”
After graduation, Calloway got a job with the Davidson County Public Defender’s office in the adult division. After a few years, Calloway felt like she was fighting the system more than helping it, so she decided it was time for a change. She requested to work in the juvenile court system.
“After several years, I felt like as a public defender, I was fighting everything,” Calloway said “I was fighting a system, I was fighting judges, and most of the time, I was fighting with my clients. And it just never seemed to change.”
In 1998, Calloway officially moved to the Davidson County Juvenile Court system. “I loved [working in Juvenile Court],” Calloway said. “I felt like there was an effort to figure out why and how we can help. It was really an opportunity to say what happened to the child, how can we help this child, and how can we help the entire family, that’s what drew me in.”
Through her work with the Juvenile Courts as a magistrate, Calloway was exposed to different approaches to achieving juvenile justice across the nation, which she credits as being influential to her current approaches as a judge.
“We were a part of an organization called the National Council of Juvenile and Family court judges (NCJS), and it’s a nationwide, international organization that prides itself on best practices for juvenile law,” Calloway explained. “We were a court that would go around and see other practices…There were things I would put in my wheelhouse like ‘we can do this.’”
When the prior judge stepped down, and Calloway found herself unhappy in the interim judge’s system, she decided to put her name in the race for the position. Her platform was to prevent problems, to promote the positive potential of all people that came into the jurisdiction, and promote fairness and hope.
“There were some people who didn’t ever fall into [my new system] that eventually left, because I think they thought they could wait [me] out, and [I] would go back to [the] old way,” Calloway said. “[But I was like] ‘No I’m here for a while and I’m not changing my vision,’ this is who I am.”
Calloway also elaborated on the restorative justice focus the juvenile court has taken under her tenure.
“In our prison systems, we dehumanize people, and then we expect them to come out [of incarceration] and be better,” Calloway said. “We put you in a cell, take away any type of human qualities in you, and tell you to get better and think about what you did. And then when you come out what are you? You’re not better.”
Calloway has seen the positive impact of restorative justice techniques first hand with juveniles in her court.
“[Restorative techniques] really do make a difference,” Calloway said. “It really helps to heal the harms that were caused, and it helps the person to literally be accountable for what they’ve done, understanding how it hurts, and how they can help make it better.”
In terms of the future and her legacy, Calloway hopes to further develop restorative justice as a meaningful and better alternative to the traditional criminal system, especially with juveniles. She hopes that, eventually, lawmakers will work with restorative-minded judges, instead of against them.
“Statewide, juvenile crime is down; it’s down a lot,” Calloway said. “So why are we making these more punitive laws to make it worse?”
