Camille Nelson, a second-year law student at the University of Ottawa, is at home when her phone rings.
It’s the vice dean, Sanda Rogers, who wants to know why Nelson has not applied for a clerkship at the Supreme Court of Canada. After all, Rogers says, that’s what the top-performing students do.
Nelson doesn’t know what a clerkship is, but she thinks it would be more beneficial to get experience in her field rather than doing what sounds like secretarial work. After Rogers explains the importance of the opportunity, Nelson decides to apply. And she ends up securing a clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci.
“He hired me and changed my life,” says Nelson. “The experience was massively transformative. He opened up to me a world of possibilities.”
That’s what Nelson has endeavored to do for others throughout an academic career marked by pioneering professional success. She not only was the first Black woman to clerk for Canada’s Supreme Court, she went on to become the first woman and first person of color to be appointed dean of Suffolk University Law School and the first Black person in her current position – dean and professor at the American University Washington College of Law.
“In working with Dean Nelson over the years, she has always shown an amazing level of commitment, intelligence and thoughtfulness towards the obligations of law schools and higher education in serving their students,” says Janet Jackson, director of the American Bar Association’s Center for Innovation, on whose governing board Nelson serves as chair of the Fellows Committee. “She brings energy to education, and an urgency when it comes to issues regarding diversity and opportunity for marginalized students.”
For Nelson, being a door-opener and not just a role model is an important way of paying forward how numerous people – such as Rogers and Iacobucci – helped and encouraged her.
