By Jo Ann Mitchell Brasington ’89

Years ago, while running on a treadmill, busy mom and law professor Catherine Smith ’91 discovered that a constitutional law hornbook was missing an entire section.

“The rights of children were ambiguous or not mentioned at all,” says Smith. Now she’s challenging her students at Washington and Lee University School of Law to change that.

“We get to fill those missing pages,” says Smith, Vincent L. Bradford Professor of Law. “This generation of students gets it. I don’t have to explain why the rights of young people are important. In many cases, young people’s rights are absent from the arguments and court’s decision, even though — as a group — children will experience the greatest impact from the outcome. I ask the law students, why? In other cases, the Supreme Court hasn’t decided a legal question from a youth perspective, so I ask students what they envision. What test would they construct?”

Smith and her partner, Suzette Malveaux, Roger D. Groot Professor of Law at W&L, were recruited to the university last year from their positions at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and the University of Colorado College of Law, respectively. This is their first semester teaching full time at W&L. Smith specializes in torts, civil rights and children’s rights. Malveaux teaches in the areas of civil procedure, complex litigation, civil rights and employment discrimination.

“This semester, we’re really focused on getting to know our students and the community. The students are smart and engaged, and we’re enjoying the vibrant guest speakers and scholars,” says Smith. She says she appreciates the supportive environment and the short walk to work. “Without the long commute, I feel like I’ve found time.”

And that’s a good thing considering the $2.2 million grant she received in 2023 to co-found the Consortium for the Advancement of Children’s Constitutional Rights with professors Robin Walker Sterling (Northwestern Pritzker School of Law) and Tanya Washington (Georgia State College of Law). The anonymous gift is making it possible to develop law courses and a series of national symposia, write a textbook, and produce additional scholarship in the field of children’s rights.

“The way to change how we think about children and their rights means changing the way attorneys and law schools teach it,” says Smith. “We’ve made so many connections through this work. It’s really stretched my thinking.”

One of those connections led to Smith’s involvement as an expert in Juliana v. the United States and Navahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation, two groundbreaking, youth-led climate cases.

“This is going to be the Brown v. Board of Education for climate cases,” says Smith. The youth-plaintiffs argue that they are most impacted by the destruction of the planet, and they have a fundamental right to a healthy and sustainable climate.

Smith and her co-authors wrote an amicus brief in a case headed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The brief, “Scholars for the Advancement of Children’s Constitutional Rights,” argues in support of Colorado in a case concerning the state’s newly enacted Universal Pre-Kindergarten program.

Smith drew national attention in 2015 when the amicus brief on the rights of children of same-sex couples she co-authored was cited in the landmark same-sex marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges. Years later, Smith wrote a childcentric chapter (“concurring opinion”) in the book “What Obergefell v. Hodges Should Have Said: The Nation’s Top Legal Experts Rewrite America’s Same-Sex Marriage Opinion” (Jack M. Balkin, ed., Yale University Press, 2020). The research was a gateway for much more, and the consortium will give Smith a platform to continue to develop ideas that involve children’s rights in other topics such as gun violence or immigration.

Smith’s faculty appointment at W&L also means that a few Terriers have the opportunity to experience the work of the consortium. Current Wofford graduates enrolled at W&L School of Law include Cayleen Hall ’23 and Pierson Hotchkiss ’22, who met Smith at a coffee shop in the fall. Neither is in Smith’s class, but they enjoyed the opportunity to connect.

A first-year student at W&L, Hall grew up playing homicide detective, complete with crime scene chalk and tape thanks to her grandfather, an actual homicide detective. Hall would dress up as an attorney for career day. At Wofford she was involved in pre-law and studied criminology abroad in the Netherlands. She double majored in government and sociology and anthropology, minored in history and was a Bonner Scholar who worked with South Carolina Legal Services. After graduation she spent two years with Teach for America before enrolling at W&L.

“I’ve found that Wofford prepares you well for the workload of law school,” says Hall. “Like at Wofford, the professors at W&L are very high caliber. I enjoy being back in a community where everyone knows each other.”

For Hotchkiss, a second-year law student, W&L is a family tradition. He’s from the area, and several members of his family are graduates. Hotchkiss majored in business economics at Wofford and worked in Spartanburg for the legal firm Holcombe Bomar for a few years before beginning law school.

“After Wofford the material is not conceptually hard, but the volume is a lot,” says Hotchkiss, who’s on the law review, serves as an admission ambassador and is a member of the business law society.

According to Hotchkiss, flag football on Fridays at W&L is indicative of the strong sense of community. “It’s definitely comparable to Wofford,” he says. The Wofford/W&L combination is part of the reason that Hotchkiss already has a job lined up after graduation. He will be working with Willson, Jones, Carter and Baxley in Greenville, S.C., with Hal Willson ’89.

Caedyn Porzio ’23 is also at W&L, finishing his degree. He has been involved in mock trial and this past spring was named runner-up in the finals of the W&L School of Law 2025 Mock Trial Competition. In a LinkedIn post after the event, he wrote: “W&L Law’s community consists of not just great future lawyers, but also great friends, and is part of what makes this place so special.”

Smith and the Wofford law students hope more Terriers join them at W&L Law and in the Lexington community.