Originally published in Student Lawyer, February 2003 (Vol. 31, No. 6)

SPOTLIGHT

Law School Wears Well on This Year's Miss America Contestants

Perhaps you've heard that Miss America, Erika Harold, will be heading off to begin classes at Harvard Law School next year. Here's another pageant tidbit of interest to law students: Three of Harold's competitors vied for the crown while pursuing their J.D.s, and three others are planning to attend law school next year.

"Law was the overwhelmingly dominant profession of choice at this year's pageant," reports Miss Arizona, Laura Lawless, in an e-mail to Student Lawyer. Lawless, a 2L at Arizona State University College of Law, competed on a mental health platform. She plans to practice mental health law and pursue reform through public policy.

Lawless is taking the year off from school to serve as Miss Arizona, but she says the experience hasn't detracted from her legal education. "The work I do every day is empowering," she says. "In many ways, this is an education for my future career."

Lawless volunteers with Arizona Victims for Violence, a nonprofit group that helps crime victims through the criminal justice process, and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. She also is a spokeswoman for the Arizona Governor's Office on the Prevention of Family Violence and a co-director for her school's Advocacy Program for Battered Women.

Miss District of Columbia, Sarah-Elizabeth Langford, is a 3L at Howard University School of Law. She says her classmates and professors were encouraging throughout the pageant process.

"I had to miss 21/2 weeks of school, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience," she says. "Everyone was really excited for me. A lot of my friends drove up to Atlantic City [for the pageant], and there was a viewing party at school."

Langford's employers were supportive, too. She had planned to work last summer at a Florida law firm, but she had to cut her internship short when she won the Miss District of Columbia pageant. After returning to Washington, she was able to get a summer job with a firm there.

"I talked with both [employers], because my first obligation was to the firms, but they recognized that it was a hard decision between my career and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Langford says. The D.C. firm extended Langford an offer through the school year.

"So many people think that pageants are superficial, but as soon as they meet us, we don't need defending anymore," Langford says. "We're intelligent young women, and people are supportive of that."

Langford isn't sure what area of law she'll work in after graduation, but she's interested in litigation, government contracts, and corporate law. Langford's platform issue was "Mentoring the Youth of America."

Miss Virginia, Jennifer Pitts, will finish her third year at George Mason University School of Law next year, after she fulfills her Miss Virginia commitments. Pitts competed on a volunteering platform and says she has discovered "creative ways" to combine the issue with her law school experience.

As president of George Mason's Association of Public Interest Law, Pitts organized students to deliver meals to homebound AIDS patients and to participate in other community activities. "It was a natural combination with my platform," she says.

Pitts acknowledges that members of the legal community can be suspicious of pageants, but says "once they hear from me or from my friends that I'm competing for scholarship money for school, they're more supportive." Pitts has earned more than $30,000 in scholarship money from various pageants.

In fact, Pitts says employers are often impressed with the opportunities for substantive work she has enjoyed as Miss Virginia. For example, Virginia's governor appointed her to the state's commission on community service.

Pitts plans to work in general litigation after graduation and then begin a career in child advocacy, an interest she pursued as an intern with the ABA Center on Children and the Law.

The three Miss America contestants who are not currently law students but plan to enroll are Miss Minnesota Allyson Kearns, Miss Texas Lisa Dalzell, and Miss South Dakota Vanessa Shortbull.

Anne Graber

Do you know a distinguished law student who would make an interesting subject for Spotlight? Please e-mail suggestions along with your name, address, and daytime/evening phone numbers to abastulawyer@abanet.org (subject line: Spotlight).