Peer to Peer: ILTA's Quarterly Magazine
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/1227987
72 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | S P R I N G 2 0 2 0 T he definition of "Maverick," according to dictionary.com is "unorthodox, unconventional, nonconformist," and the definition of "Innovation" is "introduction of new things or methods." Put simply, mavericks write their own rulebooks, and in the context of legal education, it is hard to imagine that names, such as Caitlyn (Cat) Moon, Katrina Lee, Alyson Carrell, and Shellie Reid, would not emerge as top of mind. Indeed, these women all have many commonalities--identities as innovators, unconventional, and involved in academia. At the same time, their unique backgrounds, career trajectory and life experience are equally unique and contribute to their new descriptions as 'maverick women.' Cat Moon started her career as a practicing lawyer and after a few years in private practice at a firm, left with two other peers to start her own firm. Before joining Vanderbilt Law School's Program on Law and Innovation (PoLI) as a professor, she embarked on her solopreneur journey providing legal and strategic business counsel to entrepreneurs, startups, businesses, and nonprofits. Since joining Vanderbilt, she has expanded her involvement as an academic now as Director of the Poli Institute, Director of Innovation Design and a lecturer in Vanderbilt's Department of Radiolo. Moon's most impactful career achievement to date was the creation of the first course she taught at Vanderbilt Law School, Legal Problem Solving focusing on human-centered design. She expounds, "I introduced these law students to a completely different way of problem-solving and helped them expand their toolbox, embracing creativity, curiosity, comfort with ambiguity and collaboration alongside thinking like a lawyer." Moon's unique approach in designing the course, used, in her words, a "meta-application of human-centered design" by putting herself in the shoes of her students to by Natalie Runyon MAVERICK WOMEN Working at the Intersection of the Law, Academia and Innovation