Darrius Woods ’17 knew what he wanted to do in the legal field before he enrolled at Vanderbilt Law. His path to recognizing those professional goals has been somewhat winding, but always rewarding.  “I always wanted to do something related to community and economic development, but it took a while to align my career with what I had imagined it would be during law school,” he said.

The Senior Staff Attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has worked across different areas of property law throughout his career. After graduating Vanderbilt, he accepted a two-year Equal Justice Works fellowship at the Atlanta Legal Aid Society. His work focused on supporting clients who were evicted from homes they believed they had purchased but had unknowingly leased through a land contract or contract of deed.

The focus on an unfamiliar subject (mortgage law) gave Darrius pause at first. “But then I asked myself ‘why not?’ It still deals with property, and I can learn a new skill,’” he explained. “I received awesome training from being in that specific department. I was able to work on some cool cases, and I became very specialized and somewhat of an expert in that field. There are not many people who know about these issues, so I was able to present conferences about this topic.”

As the fellowship ended, Darrius received an offer to become a staff attorney for the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation. He focused primarily on landlord-tenant work, collaborating directly with local, pro bono private attorneys to achieve housing stability for low-income families in Atlanta’s Westside.

He also managed school-based clinics, which allowed families of attendees to contact him for legal advice. “They were usually schools with high student turnover rates and absenteeism, due in large part to housing instability,” he said. “The goal was to try to mitigate that challenge by having a lawyer inside the school who can represent them if they have valid legal claims and also just be there as a resource.”

After several years at the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, Darrius began contemplating his next career move. When several public-interest-minded judges posted clerkship openings in Atlanta, multiple people in Darrius’ network urged him to apply. He ended up clerking for the U.S. District Court for Northern District of Georgia for two years.

“I don’t think I would have known about that clerkship if I didn’t have connections with the greater public interest community,” he explained. “I got recommendations from all those people as well, and it’s just because when I showed up to work, I did my job and listened to people.

“It’s important to really care about how you interact with everyone. Do your best and get out there and actually talk to people.”

Darrius followed up the clerkship with an eight-month sabbatical, polishing his Spanish language skills during travels to Spain and Mexico while looking for the next opportunity. The SPLC job was the only position he applied to, and it “worked out perfectly, because I got the job that I wanted,” he said.

In his short time on the economic justice litigation team, Darrius has worked on several land use matters, including a high-profile case involving Sapelo Island. Located in McIntosh County, Georgia, the barrier island is the long-time home of the Gullah Geechee people, descendants of freed slaves who established a community there during Reconstruction. McIntosh County is trying to impose a new zoning ordinance to increase development on the island, which would likely displace the Black landowners. The Georgia Supreme Court just ruled unanimously to allow a referendum that would restrict development from moving forward.

Darrius encourages lawyers who want a similar career in public interest to be patient and open-minded as they look for new opportunities, and to be flexible if they have exhausted the current room for growth. “Out of law school, you might not get the exact dream job, but if you are patient, you’ll get the job that maybe you’ve wanted all along. In the process, you’ll learn so much,” he said.