Osler's Razor

Every Wednesday, I'm profiling a member of my law school class. They're a fascinating group, and it has been an adventure to catch up on all they have done.

In a group that included an awful lot of smart people, Stephanie Dangel was a standout. I remember her telling me about her hometown--Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania--and feeling a certain kinship since my family was partly from little Pennsylvania mountain towns like Shamokin. But other than that, she was way ahead of me. She had graduated from Penn and had then gone to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar while I was scuttling around Detroit in a broken-down Volkswagen Rabbit as a process server.

After law school, she clerked for Justice Blackman, during the time that Casey v. Planned Parenthood (a crucial abortion case) was being decided by the Supreme Court.

After the clerkship, she kind of swerved. Instead of staying in DC or going to New York, she moved back to Pennsylvania and worked for a firm in Pittsburgh. After six years, she decided to stay home for a while with her two kids. Before long, she edged back into public life, working with the Steeltown Entertainment Project-- both making movies and heading up their legal affairs. As a kid who grew up around arts projects in Detroit, I really appreciate groups like that which bring the arts into cities where things were built.

Now she is teaching at the the University of Pittsburgh's law school and has been the Executive Director of the Innovation Training Institute there. It sounds like good and fulfilling work-- and it's good to know that I'm not the only one who has found their place outside of DC, New York, and California.