For this edition of Texas Law’s Student Spotlight series, meet 2L Brennan Caruthers!
What made you choose Texas Law?
I chose Texas Law because of the people. There were a ton of reasons to choose Texas—I had family in Austin, I had lived here for years, and I loved this city to death. And one of my first exposures to the legal field was to Professor Vladeck’s work on the Steven Donziger case, so Texas Law was always on my radar. But, without a doubt, it was the warmth, diversity, and camaraderie in this community that convinced me that Texas Law was where I wanted to spend the next three years of my life.
What groups/clubs/internships have you participated in while at Texas Law?
Everything about this field fascinates me, so I’ve bounced around quite a bit as I explore different communities and interest areas. Some highlights have been: volunteering with the Workers Defense Project to assist native Spanish speakers in filing wage theft claims with the Texas Workforce Commission, editing academic pieces with a big group of friends on Texas Law Review, serving as a research assistant to Professor Rave looking into novel trends in mass tort bankruptcy cases, co-organizing the 2024 Getting Radical In The South (GRITS) conference to explore ideas around progressive lawyering in the American South, and interning part-time during my 1L Spring semester with Kaplan Law Firm—a fantastic employment and civil rights plaintiff-side firm here in Austin.
You have helped establish a new student organization—PALS. Tell us more about that.
The majority of my time has been spent organizing with two groups of students to promote awareness of plaintiff-side career paths and build a community for those pursuing a practice in the plaintiffs’ bar. At Texas Law, this has taken the shape of PALS: the Plaintiffs’ Advocacy & Litigation Society, and our board has been working nonstop to ensure students know about these career paths and provide resources to those looking for jobs left of the ‘v.’ On a national level, several Texas Law students and I collaborated with students from other law schools to create the NPLA: the National Plaintiffs’ Law Association. This organization is a big-picture counterpart to PALS that aims to simplify the plaintiff-side job search process, support nascent PALS-equivalents at other law schools, and coordinate students nationally so we can speak with a single voice to promote change within the plaintiffs’ bar. I could talk all day about these groups, so I will spare everyone the monologue. That said, if a reader did want to hear more about PALS, they could always email TexasPlaintiffs@gmail.com. OK, now I’m done!
What is the most interesting class you’ve taken at the Law School?
Professor Baker and Professor Silver’s Colloquium on Current Issues in Complex Litigation. The seminar covered current issues in multidistrict litigation, class actions, and aggregate settlements, among other related topics concerning aggregate litigation. The course met each week during the semester, with Week A dedicated to discussing an academic paper on some aspect of aggregate litigation and Week B being a live presentation and Q&A session with the author of Week A’s paper. Aggregate litigation captured my attention the first week of law school and I have been spellbound ever since, so this class was like my Super Bowl. Shout-out to Professors Baker, Silver, and the Texas Law administration for offering such a neat seminar! 
What’s your favorite study spot?
There is something very special about Cherrywood Coffeehouse. Objectively speaking, it is quite possibly the worst study spot in the nation—the music is loud and erratic, alternating between hyperpop and doomcore, while the flatscreen TVs are always simultaneously playing something random and distracting (recently it was The Matrix followed by Kung Fu Panda!). The seats are often full, the outlets are mostly broken, and the eavesdropping is so good that I simply must tune in. And yet, somehow, I’m able to focus at Cherrywood better than anywhere else in this city … it’s like the pure chaos of the establishment serves as extra-potent white noise. And the employees are all gems!