When Elizabeth Wehby started her undergraduate education at Clemson in 2019, she was a pre-med major. Then the pandemic shut almost everything down, leaving her plenty of free time to consider her future. The free time, coupled with that summer’s social justice movement, led her to a new path in public interest.

She switched her major to pre-law and began looking at which law schools specifically offered a public interest program. During her search, Elizabeth prioritized law schools that offered hands-on learning opportunities, and Vanderbilt rose to the top of the list.

“I knew that Vanderbilt had a dedicated public interest office, and I knew they had clinics that they offered, and that they had externship opportunities, and so that checked all my boxes,” she said. “[Public Interest Dean Beth Cruz] has been instrumental in my public interest career and my law school career.”

Coming into law school, Elizabeth was focused on juvenile justice, having interned at the Greenville Department of Juvenile Justice and Youth Villages during college and having worked in special education post-graduation. Once she got to Vanderbilt, however, she began to explore other aspects of public interest. She says that her favorite course was Access to Justice with Professor Lauren Sudeall, which allowed students to have classes alongside inmates at the women’s prison in Nashville.

“It was truly the most informative experience I’ve had in law school, getting to learn alongside those women,” she said. “I was able to learn a lot about how these women wish they had been treated on the front end when they were first coming in contact with the [criminal] system and first getting involved with their lawyer.”

Elizabeth balances several extracurricular activities. She worked as a research assistant for Professor Nancy King and serves as the Pro Bono Director of the Legal Aid Society. She’s also a part of both the Vanderbilt Law Review and the Social Justice Reporter.

Throughout her time at Vanderbilt, Elizabeth has found her fellow students to be extremely supportive of each other. “Everyone is there to succeed, of course, but not at the expense of others,” she explained. “I think the fact that they don’t rank [students], and the fact that people have so many [job] interests location-wise, helps a lot with making it so that everyone is able to enjoy that supportive community.”

Elizabeth also found the faculty equally helpful when it came to seeking out internships. Dean Cruz encouraged Elizabeth to sign up for a mock interview with a current attorney at the Education Rights Project in the Nashville Defender’s Office. That connection turned into an unpaid summer internship, bolstered by a $6,000 summer stipend from Vanderbilt.

For her 2L summer, Elizabeth applied for multiple opportunities through the Equal Justice Career Fair. She received several offers and opted to intern with a smaller public defender’s office in Paducah, Kentucky, to experience a law practice outside of a major city. She says that the smaller office will give her the chance to work on a wide range of cases and see how careers in public defense look in different settings.

As for her post-grad plans, Elizabeth is considering a public interest fellowship for her first year or two out of school. Ultimately, she hopes to eventually work in juvenile justice again, both directly with clients and later in a policy position. She encourages aspiring public interest lawyers to take a similar approach and get as much hands-on experience and interact with as many potential client populations as possible.

“The best advice I’ve ever received is when we were on our last day at the prison. One of the women said that ‘I wish people would just come in and have a conversation with us,’” Elizabeth said. “Seek out opportunities to be in community with the people that you want to work with, because that is how you will become a better lawyer and a better advocate for them.”