Emma Harrison came to law school with a clear goal: to launch a career as a public defender. As she researched law schools, Vanderbilt stood out. Its strong Public Interest and Criminal Justice programs provided a solid foundation for a career focused on criminal defense.

Vanderbilt’s location was also an important factor. Tennessee is a death-penalty state, which meant Emma could find opportunities to work on capital cases as an intern during law school. She also wanted to continue volunteering in local prisons, as she had done as an undergraduate at West Virginia University. The 14 correctional institutions located in Nashville, including the Riverbend Maximum Security prison and the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, afforded ample opportunities for volunteers like Emma.

“Vanderbilt checked all of the boxes. I met with the Public Interest Office, and I was impressed with the resources Vanderbilt offered compared to other schools in the South,” she said.

Emma’s strong desire to focus on capital public defense was sparked by two formative college experiences: an internship with the West Virginia Innocence Project, where she worked with a team of attorneys and law students on innocence cases, and her work as a volunteer teacher at a federal prison in Morgantown, where she saw firsthand the negative impact that lack of access to services for re-entering society can have on individuals.

While Emma found her first year of law school challenging, her coursework confirmed her choice to study law starting in the first semester. “I don’t have any lawyers in my family, so law school was an incredible learning curve. But my first class was Criminal Law, and it was exciting to start with the area of law I’m interested in,” she recalled. “My favorite first-year course was Torts with Professor [Ed] Cheng, because it was interactive and fun to learn based on his teaching style.”

She connected with the Public Interest Office for career guidance and led a 2022 Pro Bono Spring Break student team that worked at the Appalachian Citizen’s Law Center in Whitesburg, Kentucky, in her 1L year. As a 2L, she led a team of four students who traveled to Oxford, Mississippi, to spend Spring Break 2023 working with North Mississippi Rural Legal Services. “I worked on a divorce case, and other students worked on an adverse possession property case and a will dispute. None of us had worked in these areas of law, and it was exciting to learn more about them outside the classroom,” she said.

Emma chose extracurriculars aimed at honing both her litigation and public advocacy skills. She is a member of the National Moot Court Team and, as a 3L, created a civil legal aid clinic to serve clients incarcerated in the Davidson County jail. “The Moot Court team has significantly helped me with my oral advocacy skills and my ability to clearly explain complicated legal issues,” she said. “The civil legal aid clinic’s goal is to fill a gap by addressing civil legal issues incarcerated individuals face that are beyond the work their criminal defense attorneys can do. We had two clinics this fall and will continue to work this spring.”

She has focused her upper-level coursework on criminal justice and litigation skills courses. “My favorite courses have been Trial Advocacy taught by two Nashville public defenders, Georgia Sims and Annie Berry Anselman; Criminal Procedure: Investigation taught by Professor [Chris] Slobogin; Criminal Procedure: Adjudication taught by Professor [Nancy] King; and Capital Punishment taught by Professor [Lauren] Sudeall,” she said.

During summer 2023, Emma gained substantive work experience working at the Allegheny County Public Defender’s Office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where rising third-year law students could get a student practice license to do legal work. “I was able to represent clients in preliminary hearings under the supervision of a public defender. It was an incredible privilege to practice law as a student and have some great outcomes for the clients,” she said.

She followed that experience with an externship with the Nashville Defender’s Office in fall 2023. “I was able to appear in court to do a suppression hearing and a preliminary hearing under a similar student practice license here in Tennessee,” she said.

Emma will join the Nashville Defenders as a public defender after graduation and feels well-prepared for a career in public advocacy. “The VLS community is collaborative and supportive. While most of my peers are going to big law firms, they are incredibly supportive of my public interest career goals. Law school is difficult, but having friends, faculty, and staff being supportive of me makes it easier,” she said.

She encourages prospective students to consider their options before entering law school. “Law is incredibly powerful. This is not a profession you should enter into lightly. Lawyers have the power to change lives and the law. Remind yourself who supported you to get here and remain steadfast in your pursuit of justice. Law school is hard, but it’s a great privilege to help clients,” she advises.