UC Law hooding spotlight: Annie McClellan

Talk about a life-changing semester. Over spring break last year, 3L Annie McClellan’s second child was born. One week later, she was back in the classroom at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Three weeks after that, she and her husband packed up the baby and traveled southwest to compete in the Texas Young Lawyers Association’s National Trial Competition.

Now, weeks from graduation from Cincinnati Law, McClellan is gearing up for life as a full-time attorney and Bearcat alum.

McClellan originally planned to become a statistician and studied math at Xavier University in Cincinnati. During her first week of undergrad, her professor mentioned that at least one math major typically takes the LSAT each year. Intrigued, McClellan started thinking about her options and decided law school would be her next step.

Transferring from math to law was not a challenge for McClellan, in fact she believes that her math background gives her an edge in the courtroom. “As a mathematician,” she explains, “you have to write proofs using theorems that must be in the perfect order to move to the next step. This is basically what you’re doing in law school, but law is much more gray than math. Your argument doesn’t have to be perfect. You have to be logical enough to convince a judge or a jury that your perspective should win.”

While working at Taft during her first summer, McClellan met the Honorable Judge John B. Nalbandian when he was an attorney at the firm. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed by President Donald J. Trump on May 17, 2018, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Once he was appointed, Judge Nalbandian began looking for clerks to join his team and remembered McClellan from Taft. Following graduation this spring from Cincinnati Law, McClellan will begin a clerkship with him for the next year.

McClellan’s responsibilities will mostly include prepping heavily before cases with the Judge. She will write bench memos, attend and prep questions for oral arguments, perform research, assist the judge with determining the outcome of the trial, or contribute her writing skills where needed.

While her accomplishments outside of the classroom are exceptional, McClellan made sure she had time for law school extracurriculars. As the executive director of Moot Court, McClellan and several teammates traveled to Washington, D.C. in February for the 25th Annual National Telecommunications and Technology Moot Court Competition to compete against 11 other teams from across the country. While there, she won the award for Best Oralist.