Katlyn Miller had an unparalleled opportunity to learn how the highest court in the land operates during the two years she served on the staff of the Supreme Court of the United States. Miller had originally planned to enter law school immediately after earning her undergraduate degree at American University. However, after interning in the Supreme Court’s Clerk’s Office during her senior year of college, she was offered a permanent position on the Court’s staff, which also afforded an ideal preparation for law school. “The Supreme Court’s work is a very academic pursuit conducted by some of the top legal minds in the world,” she said. “The Socratic questioning we undergo in class at Vanderbilt is similar to the interactions the justices engage in with arguing attorneys during oral argument.”
While working in the Court’s offices, Miller met Vanderbilt Law graduate Kate Tarbert, Class of 2005, who clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts during 2010-11. Tarbert’s positive experience at Vanderbilt encouraged Miller to apply, but she was still deciding among law schools in April 2011 when she arrived at Vanderbilt for Admitted Students Day. “Within the first hour, I knew I would come here,” she said. “The community as a whole and the ‘feel’ of Vanderbilt won me over. This was the first campus where I thought, ‘These are the people I want to be around for the next three years.’ The students here are extremely intelligent but also well-rounded and down to earth, and the professors really care about teaching and connecting with students. I enjoy working with and learning from my colleagues at Vanderbilt, and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”
Miller spent summer 2013 working at King & Spalding in Washington, D.C., after spending summer 2012 at a law firm in her hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, that specializes in Native American interest work. She was a law clerk for Judge James C. Mahan, a 1973 Vanderbilt Law graduate, on the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada during 2014-15, and now works as an assistant attorney general in the Office of the West Virginia Attorney General. She will clerk for Judge Alice Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit for the 2017-18 term.
Miller was a star high-school soccer player who played on American University’s women’s soccer team as a freshman, but then left the team to focus on her coursework. However, she still enjoys playing soccer and is active in the Vanderbilt Law Futbol Club, a student organization that organizes a weekly coed soccer match. “Law school is a demanding and stressful experience,” she said. “The Futbol Club helped us maintain balance by doing something together that didn’t have anything to do with law or school.” She also served as co-president of the Law Students for Veteran’s Affairs and was active in the Jewish Law Students Association.
After six years in D.C., Miller was pleasantly surprised by life in Nashville, a state capital with big-city amenities, but a more relaxed quality of life. “What a great city!” she said. “You feel the southern sense of community and hospitality everywhere. My first semester, the streets around the law school closed down for a free Alan Jackson concert!”