Amanda C. Jones, Sustaining Patron Fellow and Member of the ABF Fellows Research Advisory Committee, is currently the Institutional Compliance Program Manager, within the Office of the Senior Vice President and General Counsel, at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. Amanda began her career as a litigation associate at the Chicago office of a global law firm, focusing on commercial contract and real estate disputes, and energy and environmental matters, before transitioning to an in-house role advising law firms on risk management, compliance, and professional responsibility issues. She is a past member of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and the Standing Committee on Professional Regulation, among others.
Q: What does being an ABF Fellow mean to you?
Being an ABF Fellow is amazing. I appreciate the chance to support cutting-edge legal research and being able to meet other diverse, weird, and wonderful Fellows and ABF researchers.
Q: Where do you consider your hometown and what is your favorite thing about it?
I grew up in Healdton, a small oilfield town in south central Oklahoma. My favorite thing about it is that I have about fifty first cousins, and growing up in Healdton meant that I spent a lot of time with most of them during my childhood. It’s wonderful to have friends who are family.
Q: Why did you decide to pursue a career in law?
I did not intend to pursue a career in law. I started college as a mathematics major, and while math will always be my first love, during college, I discovered how much I loved history as well. After studying early modern history for my master’s degree at the University of Chicago, while working at the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project part-time, I decided to go to law school to continue learning new things. In the end, I fell into commercial litigation because I had a knack for it and I had student loans to pay.
Q: If you hadn’t pursued a career in law, what would you have done?
Realistically, I probably would have become a math professor, but my secret dream has always been to own a wine and cheese shop and spend my days introducing people to amazing cheeses they haven’t experienced yet.
Q: What do you do in your free time?
Everything I can. I’m notorious for planning as far in advance as possible and over-booking (never double-booking!) sporting events, movies, concerts, theater, and travel. I will watch anyone play baseball, I love it when the Philadelphia Orchestra plays Rachmaninoff, and at any given time, I’m usually in the middle of two or three books (fiction and non-fiction).
Q: Who is your professional hero?
My professional heroes are the lawyers who are always striving to do the right thing, to be a beacon for the profession, and to maintain the highest standards of client service and ethical conduct; those who never expect or anticipate awards or accolades, but find comfort and peace in a job well done and a life well lived, knowing that they have made big differences in small ways in the lives of some or many individuals, even if they will never be renowned or celebrated for it. And, one who is all of those things but was also appropriately recognized and celebrated, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.