Q: When did you realize you would rather teach instead of practice at a law firm?
LS: I can’t say that I would rather teach than practice. I enjoyed practicing indigent criminal defense for nearly seven years before becoming a professor and miss that kind of “in the trenches” work very much. There’s perhaps nothing more rewarding than winning a dismissal or bail argument, a “not guilty” verdict or a substantial sentencing reduction for the individual client and their family. That said, even as a young law student trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my career, I envisioned working with others to effect large-scale, systemic change for entire communities and society as a whole. I’ve always felt some of the best ways to do so are at an organization like the ACLU and to inspire and inform/learn from the next generation of lawyers, community leaders, activists, and agents of social change. When the opportunity arose to return to my hometown of Detroit, MI to teach at a law school that was founded on the principles of justice and service to others and to write about and devise solutions for injustices of import to me, I jumped at that chance.

Q: Can you tell us about some of the topics you’ve written about?
LS: As a junior scholar, my body of written work is still developing but I focus on the issues about which I became passionate as an Assistant Federal Public Defender, which include criminal and social justice issues and sentencing reform. For instance, my first article was about an unfair charging practice adopted by the United States Attorney’s Office in the district where I practiced that would have led to drug defendants spending far more time in prison than what they deserved. I challenged the practice in court and won a dismissal for my client. I wrote about my experience, including why the charging practice violated statutory and constitutional law and its disproportionate impact on Communities of Color and those with substance dependency problems. Currently, I’m writing about the need for widespread drug possession and use decriminalization initiatives and substance use disorder mitigation arguments at sentencing that frame substance use disorder as a public health priority and not a criminal justice one to combat both high incarceration and opioid overdose death rates in this country.

Q: Which courses of law do you teach?
LS: Evidence, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure. 

Q: What do you enjoy most about your career as a Law Professor?
LS: I enjoy all aspects of the career as a Law Professor, including scholarship, teaching, and service to the institution. That said, there’s nothing quite like the interactions with students in the classroom and beyond. They are curious, inquisitive, and hungry to take on the challenges and rewards of a career in law. I’ve formed close bonds, even with students who have no interest in criminal defense. I’m continually impressed with University of Detroit Mercy (UDM) law students’ strong work ethic and exemplary community and law school engagement. Recently, I had the opportunity to work with the federal judge for whom I clerked, Judge Victoria A. Roberts, on her Wolverine Bar Association Judicial Externship Program, which seeks to expand federal judicial internship and clerkship opportunities for students of color and those from underserved communities – a uniquely rewarding experience. 

Q: Why did you decide to go into law?
LS: I was inspired to attend law school by a group of high school students in Inkster, MI where I worked for two years after college as a Program Assistant at a school for behaviorally and emotionally impaired students. At the time, I was considering a career in either special education or social work and the school gave me a flavor for what both fields might be like. While I was inspired everyday by the hard work and dedication of the teachers and social workers at the school, I found myself particularly drawn to the students’ stories of how they were treated within the juvenile justice system. They had both positive and negative experiences with probation officers, judges, attorneys, and guardian’s ad litem. I was motivated by these discussions to pursue a career in law, where I felt my written and oral advocacy skills could best be utilized to serve my community. 

Q: What advice would you give to young women who want to pursue a career as an Attorney?
LS: Go for it! But be prepared to read a lot in law school, and to write a lot as an attorney. Like, A LOT. On a serious note, if you are passionate about a career in law, don’t let anything hold you back. There was once a period in this country’s history when women and People of Color were not afforded the opportunities to become attorneys, judges, and politicians. We owe it to those female legal pioneers who paved the way for women to pursue a career in the legal profession to follow in their footsteps. In fact, a big part of the reason I chose to attend American University’s Washington College of Law was because it was founded by two women in 1896, when legal education was largely inaccessible to women. 

Q: Were there moments in your career that were pivotal to getting where you are today?
LS: I don’t necessarily believe there were pivotal moments as much as there were pivotal people who helped me get to where I am today. My 1L criminal law professor, who is now a good friend, Angela J. Davis, has been an advocate for and mentor to me since my first day of law school. I also do not believe I’d be where I am today without Judge Victoria Roberts, for whom I clerked for two years after law school. Judge Roberts does not cleave to the tradition of many federal judges of hiring only those law students who graduated from the top 10 law schools and prioritizes providing clerkship opportunities to law students of color. She treats her law clerks as family and helps them in any way possible to achieve their career goals. I have benefited profoundly from her mentorship and advice, as well as the references and connections she has provided me. My former boss, Marianne Mariano, Federal Public Defender for the Western District of New York, helped instill in me the courage and confidence to fight for what I believed in, even when everyone else in the courtroom was taking a contrary position. 

Recently-appointed Dean of UDM Law School, Jelani Jefferson Exum, has been instrumental in helping me navigate the transition from practice to academia. She has recommended me for speaking and writing engagements that have significantly influenced my progress as a professor and scholar. As a professor and colleague, I hope to give back to others some of what these extraordinary women have given me. Finally, my former clients and past and current students are the reason I chose this career path and on my most trying days they have helped keep me going.

Q: Can you share with us some of the community work you are involved in?
LS: Community service and giving back are extremely important to me. I sit on several committees and boards outside of my law school faculty committees. I serve on the board of the Michigan chapter of the American Constitution Society (ACS) and am involved in several pioneering projects with ACS. I also serve on the Lawyer’s Committee for the ACLU of Michigan. In the past I volunteered at Ruth Ellis Center, an organization that provides trauma-informed services for LGBTQ+ youth, and I plan to continue to look for ways to support the Center’s important work in the future. 

Q: What are the best practices you have employed to build a successful career? 
LS: As someone who was somewhat introverted prior to law school, what has helped me most has been learning to overcome that initial reservedness, and step outside of my comfort zone. By agreeing to speaking and writing engagements, networking, and becoming more involved in community and legal organizations, even in just the last couple of years, I’ve formed important connections that have already helped shape my current and future plans and goals. Some other key qualities of a successful attorney are highly developed organizational and time management skills. I keep a pretty meticulous, color-coded calendar, set meeting and other calendar reminders, and try to give myself early internal deadlines that give me plenty of flexibility should an unexpected turn of events arise. That said, I’ve also had to learn that life is unpredictable and sometimes you need to ask for help, or more time, and that’s okay too, as long as you keep those lines of communication open and do not just let deadlines pass without a word. These are values I strive to instill in my students. Finally, the ability to listen, communicate effectively, and show empathy are pivotal to public defense work and have proven just as instrumental to my ability to successfully engage with students on complex legal doctrine and theory in the classroom. 

Q: What's the greatest fear you've had to overcome to get where you are today? 
LS: To become a public defender (which ultimately led me to academia) I had to overcome a lot of self-doubt. People’s lives and liberty depended in no small part on my ability to issue-spot and advocate persuasively. Public defenders have a bad reputation in many places, and it was important to me to dispel those myths and prove my worthiness to my clients. It felt like a very weighty task to take on and especially in the early days, I worried about my ability to litigate just as well as the reputable (mostly older white male) attorneys that everyone wanted to hire. For me, overcoming some of those doubts simply involved time, experience, and patience. The more experience I gained in the courtroom, the more comfortable and self-assured I became. When I started to receive praise from judges, colleagues, and even adversaries, I became much more confident. But certainly, what helped me most was working hard, putting in long hours, and earning the trust of my clients. 

When I decided to teach I had to overcome a fear of the unknown coming from practice and having never taught before. But what I have found is that my criminal litigation experience gives me an excellent foundation to teach. I use many of my own pleadings as teaching tools, which provide students a more hands-on, practical application of the often-nebulous doctrine they are reading in their casebooks. Two years in, the fear of the unknown has largely dissipated but the fear of grading (which, thankfully, I was too clueless to worry about going in) persists!

Q: Can you tell our audience one of your most memorable moments of your career?
LS: I’ll never forget when a federal judge called me on the phone (a pretty rare event) while I was still in practice after one of my oral arguments in front of him to tell me what a great job I did handling all of my cases before him, and that my clients were lucky to have me in their corner. That conversation was pretty memorable, and I appreciated the judge’s willingness to take the time out of his day to let me know the value, from his perspective, of my voice in the courtroom. I’ve brought that experience with me into the classroom, and it has helped shape the kind of feedback I provide students and the relationships I form with them. I try to make it a point to reach out to students, especially those who are struggling at the beginning of the semester, to praise improvement and encourage them to keep challenging themselves to gain a deeper understanding of the material. 

At the end of each semester, I make sure to find out which students earned the top grades in my classes so that I can send them special congratulatory notes. Never underestimate the power of well-deserved accolades to provide much-needed motivation and encouragement! Afterall, the person on the receiving end, despite all of their accomplishments, may still harbor self-doubts. 

Q: What’s one lesson you’ve learned in your career that you can share with our audience?
LS: One of the most important lessons I’ve learned along the way is that you have to believe in yourself, move past insecurities, and ardently advocate for yourself and/or your position. Some of my most successful arguments in court were ones I wasn’t sure I should make because they were novel or nontraditional and I was worried about “rocking the boat.” I also suffered imposter syndrome when interviewing for every legal position I’ve had thus far. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to secure a federal clerkship because I didn’t graduate from Harvard or Yale Law School. I didn’t think I’d be able to get a job as an Assistant Federal Public Defender right out of my clerkship because I didn’t have practice experience yet, and I did not believe I’d be offered my current teaching position because I had a career in practice rather than teaching and scholarship when I applied. For each of these positions and for other job opportunities I’ve been afforded, I had to quiet the voice in my head that told me I was not good enough, or not what the employer was looking for. If I had listened to that voice I certainly would not be where I am today. 

Q: Which woman inspires you and why? 
LS: There are many high-profile women who inspire me – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to name just a few. All of the female mentors I mentioned in an earlier response also reach those ranks. But, since I’m focusing on just one woman, I would say the woman who has inspired me most in my lifetime is my mother, Kaye Scott, who unfortunately passed away several years ago from cancer. My mom was a pioneer in her own right. In the early 1970s, when many of her friends were having babies and staying home to raise them (in fact, by the time my mom had me and my sister, many of her friends were already grandparents), she joined the Detroit Police Department. At the time, very few women were working as police officers, and she dealt with both open and covert hostility and sexism on the force. She spent most of her career as a homicide detective. Then, in January 1977, my mother, who was a White woman, married my dad, a Black man, just ten short years after the Supreme Court invalidated anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). My parents faced a lot of pushbacks from family and friends, but they didn’t let it tear them apart. At the beginning of their relationship and as a mixed-race couple they had to enter certain bars and restaurants separately and pretend not to know each other in to stay. The story of my parents’ relationship helped me overcome some of my own insecurities about my nontraditional family unit.

Q: What are some of the challenges you feel women face today?
LS: I think many women still feel a tension between working and having a family, which is often exacerbated by the culture and expectations of many work environments, including top law firms. This culture leads to women being underrepresented in positions of power and prestige which can provide yet another barrier to those who seek to shatter the glass ceiling. My wife and I have always split child-rearing responsibilities 50/50 to the extent possible and we both work full-time outside of the home (during non-pandemic times). Staying home, switching careers, or cutting back hours to raise kids was not something either of us were interested in, but it hasn’t always been easy. I hope that one day, as a society, we get to a place where women do not feel the need to choose between having children or a career and where traditional gender roles are a thing of the past. 

Q: Can you tell us how you manage your work life balance?
LS: I have not always been great about managing work-life balance. In the past, I’ve fallen into the habit of thinking that if I was not devoting nearly 100% of my time to work, I wasn’t giving my clients enough, which often worked to the detriment of my physical and mental health. I am working on changing this mindset. To some degree, I’ve been forced to change in the past few years after having my 4-year old daughter and now with a 1-year old son. It is, of course, important for me to be active and engaged in their lives. During much of the pandemic they were home 24/7 and I was working from home, so I devoted more time to childcare and family than I otherwise would have. I enjoyed some precious moments with my son (like witnessing his first steps) that I didn’t have with my daughter because of work. Now that they will be back in daycare full-time in the fall, the challenge will be to maintain a similar level of involvement in my children’s lives. My plan is to devote as much of my weekends to family time as possible and to be active everyday of the week, even if that means just a quick 15-minute bike ride or stroll around the block.

Five Things About Leslie Scott

1. What’s your favorite thing to do in your free time? 
I don’t have much free time these days between my career, community service endeavors, and raising a 4 year-old and 1 year-old, but I (vaguely) remember what I used to love to do in my free time! Before kids, I was into group fitness and my favorites were yoga, spinning, and Zumba (even though I’m a pretty terrible dancer). During stressful times I developed a regular practice of lighting candles or burning incense, taking long, hot bubble baths with a fiction novel in hand, and meditating, which were all incredibly important to my mental health. I also enjoyed journaling and writing poetry, often while listening to my favorite music. Writing can feel so taxing at times in academia, I’d love to eventually get back into some low-stakes creative writing just for me. For now, though, on the rare occasion of a free evening, I prefer to spend time with my wife out on a date or watching Netflix.

2. Among your friends, what are you best known for? 
Well, the answer to this question depends on which set of friends, or perhaps, more aptly, what point in my life we’re talking about. But among the close-knit circle of “clerkship” friends I kept back in 2010-2011 and beyond, I was/am probably best known for my karaoke numbers during our Wednesday karaoke nights at a gay bar in Royal Oak called Pronto. Once we learned we all loved to sing, dance, and be silly, karaoke nights became a tradition amongst our group. My friend Jordan and I loved to do the duet “Take Me or Leave Me” from Rent, my then-girlfriend (now wife) and I sang “Gin and Juice,” and I liked to do my own sultry solo version of Erykah Badu’s “Call Tyrone,” which usually garnered a standing ovation and sometimes a few dollars!

3. What’s your favorite app on your phone? 
This is going to sound crazy since I’m not in the market for a new house, but I love the Redfin app. When I’m bored or can’t sleep at night I can spend hours perusing other people’s homes. I think it’s the wanna-be interior designer/decorator in me. I love acquiring ideas and inspiration from observing how others decorate their homes -- from landscaping to front porches, kitchen backsplash, light fixtures, bedroom paint color, and everything in between. I take pictures of things I like and save them to a “dream home” folder on my phone. That folder has come in quite handy lately as we are currently planning a kitchen renovation. Not surprisingly, I’m also a big fan of the Pinterest and Houzz apps. I’m pretty sure in my past life I was a decorator.

4. Tell me about the best vacation you’ve ever taken. 
For our honeymoon, my wife and I took a tour of some of the Greek Islands, including Paros, Antiparos, and Santorini. We also visited Athens and the historical landmarks there. We ended up meeting a few other American tourists who purchased the same package as we did and spent most of our time with them. To this day, it is the best vacation I’ve ever been on. We got to witness the beauty of the sunsets, the bluest water I’ve ever seen, black sand beaches for miles, the pristine villages built on the sides of cliffs, the sculptures, paintings, vases, and jewelry -- it was all breathtaking. The food and wine were, of course, divine. The adventure. We shared traditional Greek cuisine in sleepy seaside villages, downed ouzo (a traditional Greek liquor) and tried not to gag, toured the beautiful shops and cafes of Oia, ventured through caves and cliffs with new friends and blind faith, and enjoyed the downtown Santorini night life a little too much (read: danced on tabletops). But what I remember most was how warm and inviting the people were to our group of American tourists. 

Americans are not always well-received around the world and so I was unsure of how welcome we would feel, but this was never an issue. I had drinks with Greek bartenders, danced traditional Greek dances at a Greek Wedding Theatre production, and enjoyed homemade wine at a family-owned vineyard nestled deep in the hills of rural Antiparos where we randomly ended up during a day trip in our rental van (which no one could drive very well because it was manual – thankfully we survived to tell the story!). We only had ten days there and could have easily spent another ten or more just taking it all in.

5. What’s your big passion? 
There’s a lot to be passionate about in our short time on this planet and I’ve certainly gone through different phases and passions at different stages of my life, but I’ve always been committed to social justice issues, in particular, criminal justice reform. As a public defender, I spent a lot of time in jails and holding cells. I witnessed first-hand the racial imbalances and tremendous indignities of incarceration, including overcrowding, mistreatment of inmates by corrections officers, and the lack of personal space and privacy. Clients shared stories of unsafe and unsanitary living conditions, unhealthy meals, and nonexistent medical care, among others. Our country is number one in the world in terms of incarceration rates – especially incarceration rates and lengths for nonviolent offenses such as drug crimes -- and yet our crime and drug use rates are some of the highest as well. This means the “tough on crime” approach has failed to lead to safer communities and has even backfired; it is beyond time to do things differently. Perhaps America can take some notes from Portugal’s 2001 initiative to decriminalize the consumption and possession of all drugs, which led to declines in drug use and overdose death there. I am also passionate about LGBTQ+ rights. 

As a woman married to another woman with two children through artificial insemination with a sperm donor, the safety and security of my family and nontraditional families like mine are paramount to me. Back in 2014 when my wife and I celebrated our union in Michigan we couldn’t legally marry here, so we had to have a separate marriage ceremony in New York after our wedding ceremony in Michigan. Now, we are going through the process of adopting our own children to make sure we both have equal rights over and access to them in case of an emergency. A Border Patrol agent once threatened to take our infant daughter away from us at the Canada-Buffalo border, suggesting her birth certificate – which listed two moms instead of a mother and father – was fraudulent because, in his words, “don’t tell me how biology works, everyone has a mom and a dad!” Thus, both my personal and professional experiences have led me to champion the rights of communities, families, and people on the margins, especially those with intersectional identities.