OXFORD,
Miss. – Amanda Proctor, a third-year law student at the University of
Mississippi, has a way with words according to the American Bar
Association.
Proctor, who is ranked first in her class at the
UM School of Law, placed first in the ABA Commission on Domestic
Violence 2008 Law Student Competition this past summer.
Her
winning essay, “Breaking Into the Marital Home to Break Up Domestic
Violence: Fourth Amendment Analysis of ‘Disputed Permission,” started
as a paper for a fourth amendment writing seminar taught by UM law
professor Tom Clancy last spring.
“The paper is on a timely and important topic in many ways,” said
Clancy, who described Proctor’s paper as superior to most journal
articles on the subject. “There are two recent cases, Georgia v.
Randolph and Brigham City v. Stuart, from the United States Supreme
Court that should have a lot of influence on such disputed authority to
enter. Amanda recognized the importance of those two cases’ impact on
previous doctrine and wrote a great paper on the topic.”
Her essay will be published in journals such as National Association of Women Lawyers Women’s Law Journal (as an excerpt) and the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law. The entire article is published on the ABA Commission’s Web site .
Proctor, a native of Brandon, spent spring break writing the acclaimed article. She attributes her legal writing skills in part to the breadth of her undergraduate education at Ole Miss, where she majored in mathematics and literature.
“(Legal writing) was something I had to adjust to,” she said. “I remember in my English essays I would write in long descriptive sentences, and I had to get away from that. My mathematics background really helped. You have to get to the point (in legal writing), and it has to be clear.”
Proctor’s philosophy is that lawyers do not just write for judges and lawmakers, the general public needs to be able to understand as well. But, being a legal wordsmith is only a piece of what she has in plans for her career. She is set to receive her law degree in May and plans to go into family law. She has accepted a position with the Wright Law Firm in Ridgeland, where family law will be her focus.
“(Family Law) is very appealing to me because it has a little of everything,” she said. “It is also an area of law where you do a lot of counseling and can also help people on an emotional level.”
For more information about the UM School of Law, visit http://www.law.olemiss.edu .