Law Center News
Law clerk looking forward to making her mark
Taryn Branson, ’14, knows the power of networking.
After graduating from the Southern University Law Center, Branson applied for jobs online and took advantage of every opportunity to meet attorneys.
“If there was a networking event, I made sure I was there,” she said. “Any event where I knew attorneys would be, I was there.”
Her networking efforts paid off when she saw 19th Judicial District Court Judge Trudy White at a community event. She knew Judge White was looking for a law clerk so she introduced herself. The judge told her to come for an interview and she got the job.
“I really love this job,” she said. “It makes me remember why I wanted to become an attorney in the first place.”
As a law clerk, she mainly conducts research to help the judge prepare for her various cases. She also assists with jury management, making sure jurors and attorneys understand their instructions and other details.
“I’ve learned more in three months than I would have learned in three years of practicing,” she says.
But she admits the work can be “very stressful and never ending. It truly never stops. Sometimes I’m here on weekends, just trying to make sure the wheels of justice keeps turning.”
The Monroe, Louisiana, native always wanted to be an attorney. After graduating from Louisiana Tech University, she worked as a legal secretary for a law firm in Monroe before deciding to attend SULC.
She says Southern came highly recommended. Her boss, attorney Janet Floyd, was an SULC graduate and a lot of other attorneys in the area were graduates too.
Besides, she was really looking forward to having the HBCU experience.
“It felt good to be in a professional setting where people had the same goal in mind of helping people and serving the community,” she says of her law school experience.
Before working for Judge White, she taught English at Christa McAuliffe Superintendent Academy in Baton Rouge for a year.
Meanwhile, she was recently inducted as part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Next Generation Leadership Council. The council is made of young people across the country willing to help support SCLC’s mission to ensure economic justice and civil rights for all. SCLC leaders want to ensure that there are young people ready and willing when the torch is passed from one generation of civil rights leadership to the next.
She says she’s looking forward to making her mark on justice.
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