As Ryan Jones weighed his potential career options after college, he was torn between two paths: attending law school or joining the military. He took the LSAT but eventually reasoned that “the military was not going to be an option that was going to be available to me for very much longer, while law school was always going to be there,” he recalled. “My grandfather served in World War II…and I realized that my heart was pulling me in that direction, and that on the back end of my time in the military, I could go to law school.”

Ryan spent the next five years in the U.S. Army. When he began to think about leaving the service, he reached out to veterans at various law schools, and Vanderbilt immediately stood out. He talked to 10 different veterans before applying and had a four-hour-long conversation with Professor Michael Newton, a West Point graduate and former military prosecutor. “That convinced me that Vanderbilt would be, bar none, the best place to go as a veteran, and I can say with 100% confidence that that has been proven true,” Ryan said.

In his time as a student, Ryan has tried to pay the support he has received forward, acting as president of the Law Students for Veteran Affairs, serving as an Honor Council Member, and acting as a legal writing teaching assistant. In the classroom, he has taken advantage of the breadth of classes offered at Vanderbilt Law to explore potential legal careers. In particular, he credits Professor Kevin Stack’s classes on Regulatory State and Administrative Law and the Vanderbilt in Venice program (directed by Professor Newton) for helping him sharpen his interest in administrative law and international law.

After spending six weeks in Venice studying international law, Ryan spent the rest of his 1L summer interning for a firm in Birmingham, Alabama, which he originally connected with at an on-campus Fall Mingle recruiting event. “I think it was probably the best 1L summer experience you can have,” he said. “You’re taking really interesting classes [in Venice] for six weeks, and then you get the opportunity to still have that same first-year internship experience that everybody else is having.”

For his 2L summer, Ryan focused his recruiting efforts on Washington, D.C., to put his government background to use through administrative law, regulatory work, and investigative work. He reached out to Vanderbilt alumni, particularly veterans, to talk about their experiences at different firms. Ultimately, King & Spalding stood out to him the most; he interned there as a Government Matters and Congressional Investigations Summer Associate.

“Their offices are right across from the White House. I mean, you can practically look into the Oval Office. That’s a pretty big selling point,” he said. “But they’re [also] doing the work that ties into my life experiences I had done previously, and also what I found to be most interesting while taking classes at law school.”

Ryan received a full-time offer from King & Spalding and will be returning after graduation to join the firm’s special matters group, focusing on investigative work. With his post-graduation career plans set, he is making the most of his final year at Vanderbilt Law, serving as the Executive Authorities editor for the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law and completing an internship with the university’s general council office, in addition to taking classes.

Reflecting on his transition from the military to the law, Ryan noted, “There has been this persistent pursuit throughout my life of wanting to give back, of wanting to serve, and I found that really easy in the military… and I think you can find some of those similar qualities in the pursuit of a law degree.

“I’m [working in] the private sector first but tying in a lot of what I have done over the last 10 years, [and] I see my career progression as ultimately getting back into public service, but this time with the advantage of having a law degree.”