Sonya Miller

Visiting Assistant Professor Sonya Miller currently directs the externship program at Boyd. She is a Boyd Alum (Class of ’13) who also holds an LL.M. in Taxation from Villanova University.  After graduation, she clerked for the Honorable Mary S. Brennan, J.T.C., in New Jersey Tax Court. 

What have you read, listened to, or watched recently that has influenced you or your work?

Evicted by Matthew Desmond. Evicted is a textbook but reads like a page-turner novel, depicting several low-income families struggling to maintain housing without government assistance, concluding that housing is a fundamental right. Ask yourself, can there be life, liberty, and happiness absent housing? Life largely happens in the home. Privacy, a mainstay of liberty, is largely afforded by having a home. Happiness is largely tied to home life.

Growing up in Las Vegas’ “Historic Westside,” I never experienced housing insecurity but saw it often enough and I just thought, “That’s life—people have to pay their rent.” Evicted really made me stop and reflect, which is a skill I teach in the Externship Program. For those already public interest oriented, it will inspire them to keep “fighting the good fight.” For others, it may inspire them to get in the ring.

When students ask you what they should read outside the required textbooks and other law-related books, what do you suggest?

I suggest students read books on networking. I then ask, “What is networking?” Their answers vary, but many of them center on some foggy notion of mingling with strangers and collecting business cards (which they often discard later). The very idea of having to do this sends some students scurrying—it can be uncomfortable schmoozing with strangers! Then comes the relief when I explain that even the shyest person can be an excellent networker because networking is about building and maintaining relationships rather than making superficial connections. I had a sense of this early in life but gained a fuller and formal understanding of the concept after writing a paper on relationships for Professor Sternlight’s Psychology and Lawyering course. 

What is it about being a law school professor that inspires or motivates you?

The mere privilege of teaching in a law school inspires and motivates me. By no means did I set out to pursue a career in academia nor did I ever dream of one. The idea did not occur to me but to others, including our very own Professor Lipman, Professor Keith Fogg of Villanova Law, and Eunkyong Choi formerly of Washington University Law. As my clerkship with the New Jersey Tax Court came to an end, they frequently sent me job postings for law school tax clinic director positions. I did not think myself a teacher but then I thought, “They must know something I don’t,” and I decided to apply to one of those postings.  The rest is history.