Empowerment Through Education
From an eager law student to esteemed law professor, RonNell Andersen Jones ’00 has had quite the journey in legal education. In addition to becoming a preeminent scholar, she has become a trusted mentor and helps guide aspiring legal professionals – just as her mentors did for her.
Growing as a learner
Andersen Jones started her professional career as a journalist covering local courts. She was fascinated by the cases she was covering and wanted to learn more.
“Having seen and spent time around lawyers, I started to gain confidence that it was something that I could do,” she said.
Andersen Jones was already living in Ohio and wanted to stay in the state. It was the combination of a large, well-known university with the close community feel, though, that convinced her to come to Ohio State Law.
“It was so easy to make friends and keep them because it was a collegial, collaborative place,” she said. “The school felt small enough that we really did know each other and had each other’s backs.”
Some of Andersen Jones’ fondest memories from law school are from talking through cases with study groups, both formal and informal. She says it helped develop her critical thinking and provided some of the most formative moments as a thinker.
“Within the walls of Moritz, I felt free to have conversations with other people and hear their points of view,” she said. “It helped us think critically not just about what the law is, but why it is what it is.”
Andersen Jones also remembers a class she took about the U.S. Supreme Court from Jeffrey Sutton, who is now a judge on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. She can still recall specific class sessions, assignments, and conversations about the judiciary and its role in society.
“I really hadn't given all that much thought about the US Supreme Court and its central role in our democracy,” Andersen Jones shared. “That class really opened my eyes to the operation of the judiciary as a whole in our system of separation of powers, but also as an institution that is populated with real people.”
Impactful experiences
Because of her experience in the class, Andersen Jones walked into her clerkships after graduation with a deep understanding and knowledge of the courts. She first clerked for the Honorable William A. Fletcher on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and then for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the United States Supreme Court. She learned several important lessons working in the highest court of the land.
“Justice O'Connor quite famously said ‘we don't accomplish anything in this world alone. Whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something,’” Andersen Jones said. “And I've always thought that's been true in my life. I think that I'm the mentor I am today primarily because I was so well taught and so well mentored. Most of the decisions that I make are modeled on what I think the people who were great teachers and mentors for me would do.”
Andersen Jones also gained important perspective on lawyering and the impact she can have with the knowledge she possesses.
“A JD is not just a degree in lawyering, but a degree in leadership and a degree in citizenship,” she shared. “I've learned that people within our profession have an obligation to be voices in our democracy and to help translate the law to others around us.”
Supporting the next generation
Now, Andersen Jones is a University Distinguished Professor and the Lee E. Teitelbaum Chair in Law at the University of Utah. She writes and teaches on legal issues affecting the press and the intersection of media and the courts, with an emphasis on the United States Supreme Court. Her research has appeared in several prestigious legal journals, including Northwestern Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and Minnesota Law Review. Andersen Jones is also a frequent commentator whose op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, Slate, and The Hill, to name a few. What she sees as her greatest achievement so far, though, is being able to support to her students.
“I am especially proud of the way that I'm able to be an accessible mentor to students who are first generation law students,” she said. “I think people with backgrounds like mine, from rural communities or families that don't have a history of higher education, feel a connection and appreciate having a professor who understands them and models what's possible.”
She often gives advice and insight to students who are navigating their own time in law school.
“Think about law school and your legal career as a marathon rather than a sprint,” she advises. “Some of the things that feel most frustrating about law school are the things that are most valuable. Exercising the outer boundaries of your brain power and learning to speak the language of the law can make you a powerful advocate in people's times of need.”
As she continues on in her own career, there is no doubt that Andersen Jones will keep making an impact in the field and in the lives of her students.