Tennessee Voices, Episode 241: Spring Miller, Karla McKanders and Scott Jeffrey, Vanderbilt Law School
Vanderbilt Law School has an in-house clinic of faculty and students who provide pro bono services to people in need on issues ranging from workers' rights to immigration.
On this episode, two faculty members and a student joined me on the Tennessee Voices podcast to talk about their work and passion.
Spring Miller is the assistant dean and Martha Craig Daughtrey Director for Public Interest as well as a lecturer in law.
Karla McKanders is a clinical professor of law and associate director of the Legal Clinic.
Scott Jeffrey is a J.D./Ph.D. student focused on law and economics.
The clinic teaches students how to practice law and helps them develop a "public ethic." This type of work is about service to the public, especially people who do not have the resources to pay for high-powered attorneys.
Their work has included community engagement on criminal justice; helping teachers who want to teach history, but feel stymied by the state's new critical race theory ban; and humanitarian assistance to immigrants, such as, Haitian nationals and Afghans who are settling into the United States after the withdrawal of U.S. troops over the summer.
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About Tennessee Voices
The Tennessee Voices videocast is a 20-minute program, which started in March 2020 and invites leaders, thinkers and innovators who have written guest columns for a USA TODAY Network Tennessee publication to share their insights and wisdom with me and our viewers.
Please email your ideas for future guests to me at dplazas@tennessean.com. Thank you for watching.
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David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee and an editorial board member of The Tennessean. Tweet to him at @davidplazas.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Practicing law and serving the public at Vanderbilt Legal Clinic
