EBA’s Southern Chapter Visits Vanderbilt Law School
On January 20, 2023, the EBA’s Southern Chapter hosted a road show event at Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville, Tennessee.
Charlotte Yates, a law student at Vanderbilt Law and President of the Energy and Environmental Law Society, did an amazing job of organizing students and logistics, including engaging student organizations to help sponsor and provide lunch for the students. In all, 30 Vanderbilt law students attended.
Rachel Bowen, an attorney at Penn, Stuart & Eskridge in Johnson City, Tennessee and the Secretary of the Southern Chapter of the EBA, organized an outstanding group of speakers. Rachel served as the moderator for the panel, providing time for each speaker to talk about their careers in energy law and their advice for the students interested in pursuing energy law careers. Rachel also shared a PowerPoint presentation about the EBA, including information about membership, upcoming events, and resources that the EBA provides to students and others in the energy law and policy community.
A special thanks to our speakers!
- Monica Smith-Ashford, the Hearing Officer of the Tennessee Public Utility Commission (“TPUC”), shared her unique perspective as a regulator and what a “day in the life” looks like for her as she leads the TPUC staff and ensures that matters before TPUC are moving along timely and smoothly.
- Floyd Self, a partner with Berger Singerman in Tallahassee, Florida, Secretary of the EBA and a EBA Southern Chapter board member, provided his experience representing various utility companies in multiple jurisdictions, as well as his advice for maintaining professionalism and collegiality while advocating for the interests of clients.
- Karen Stachowski, a Senior Assistant Attorney General with the Tennessee Attorney General’s office and member of the EBA, shared her experience as a ‘Consumer Advocate’ representing the interests of utility customers before the Tennessee Public Utility Commission, as well are her prior career at the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
- Erik Lybeck, a partner at Neal & Harwell, PLC, shared his experiences advocating for and serving the needs of a regulated public utility as outside counsel, and well as his advice for managing a law practice that involves diverse areas of law with competing deadlines.
The Southern Chapter leadership greatly thanks our fantastic group of speakers who shared their time and wisdom to provide an insightful and inspiring panel for the Vanderbilt Law students. We have found presenting the Road Show programs to be a great way of inspiring law students and helping them connect in different ways to potential careers in energy law. It is also a great way to recruit EBA student members who can also attend CLE and other events, and later become practicing attorney members of the EBA.
On behalf of the EBA Southern Chapter, we appreciate the tremendous support from Vanderbilt Law School. We look forward to expanding our Road Show offerings to more schools in the years to come.
Rachel C. Bowen, Secretary
EBA Southern Chapter
