Taylor Lawing immersed herself in the world of politics during her undergraduate years at UNC-Chapel Hill. She campaigned for the Democratic Party as a first-year student. During the remainder of college, she interned part-time for the Governor of North Carolina in the press office and in a policy-oriented position where she researched ways to close the state’s wage gap, encourage more women to participate in the workforce, and spotlight issues like the high cost of childcare. After graduating early in 2019, she moved to the federal side, working first for Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s campaign as an advance staffer and later for President Joe Biden’s campaign in North Carolina.

“I enjoyed being part of a campaign, but I knew that I wanted to focus more on the legal and policy issues affecting voters,” Lawing explains. “I believed the best way to gain the tools I needed to work on these issues was to go to law school.”

Vanderbilt’s reputation for nationwide placement, along with a broad curriculum that resonated with her interests, stuck out in her mind. “I felt that Vanderbilt provided a unique opportunity to explore different areas of the law before deciding what type of legal career to pursue,” she says. Lawing was awarded a Justice-Moore Family Scholarship based on her commitment to government service.

Regulatory State, taught by Associate Dean Professor Lisa Bressman, proved to be a formative experience for Lawing in her 1L year, one that offered a deeper dive into a side of the law that intrigued her. “We talked about executive orders and administrative law developments in office hours, and she gave me the space to talk through them and to understand their implications on the law and policy,” she says. “The passion I developed for administrative law was what I was looking for in a law school that I felt like many others had found in other 1L courses, like Criminal Law.”

Lawing spent her 1L summer back in North Carolina. “I really love my home state, and I wanted to spend my first summer exploring whether I wanted to spend my second summer in state government or in D.C.,” she explains. She submitted an application to the United States Attorney’s Office in Raleigh and discussed the role with a former employer in the North Carolina state government. Lawing ended up getting the only spot with the Office’s appellate team, where she worked closely with an Assistant United States Attorney. “I spent the whole summer writing briefs for the Fourth Circuit, and she gave me substantial feedback on my writing and research. I strengthened my legal skills through that feedback loop.” The experience of maintaining and growing her network on her home turf, along with the extensive work, made the summer a valuable one.

In her second year, Lawing enrolled in multiple administrative and government-related courses, including Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, and Networks, Platforms & Utilities, and became a research assistant for Dean Bressman. She joined the Vanderbilt Law Review and wrote her Note about legislator intervention, an issue at the intersection of law and politics. And, as President of the Women Law Students’ Association, she focused on sharing lived experiences, planning programs with practitioners and hosting small group coffee chats with lawyers, judges, and legal experts operating in Nashville and beyond.

When federal government opportunities opened up in January, Lawing connected with Professor Ganesh Sitaraman to discuss opportunities to work for a federal agency. She also applied for a position at the FCC on their website. Applying for government jobs can be a slow process, but the FCC requested an interview shortly after her submission, and she had a summer job within a matter of days. Lawing spent the first half of her summer researching broadband expansion for rural communities and the second half preparing her boss for a renomination hearing in Congress, which she attended. “It was a great experience to see all of the preparation and hard work come full circle,” she says.

Lawing is committed to a career in public service after graduation, clerking for Judge Claria Horn Boom in the Eastern and Western Districts of Kentucky. She’s also eligible to participate in an agency honors program after her clerkship. As Lawing begins her legal career, she knows that she can count on continuing support from professors like Lisa Bressman. “I know that with Vanderbilt, the support does not end at graduation,” she says.