Wednesday, June 02, 2021
My Students: Allen Andersen
I'm devoting Wednesdays on the blog (despite the misdirection in yesterday's post) to profiling my former students, alternating between St. Thomas and Baylor.
Allen Andersen was in my classes and clinic, and a welcome addition to both. He's out in the world now, working at the Scott County Attorney's Office as an Assistant County Attorney. I'm glad he's there-- he is exactly the kind of person that the profession needs. I very much believe he has a lot more ahead of him, too. He's going to excel in several jobs before he is done.
I learned something crucial from Allen, something that I talk about quite a bit these days.
Allen is a Marine (I have a lot of them in my clinic for some reason), and served in the Corps as the leader of a motor transport platoon, driving heavy trucks. One day in clinic we were talking about how we work at retail and wholesale-- that we both took individual cases, and tried to make the system better. Allen talked about how in the Corps sometimes they had to build the road before they could drive down it. That's a great metaphor for where we are right now with clemency: people want to drive down a road (clemency grants) that has not yet been built (because the system of evaluation is broken). We need to build the road before we can drive down it.
Professors sometimes say that they learn from their students. I'm here to tell you that it is absolutely true-- and that nugget is not the only wisdom I got from Allen and his classmates.
