Campbell Law Spotlight: Miriam Sheppard ’22

Campbell Law School alumna Miriam Sheppard ’22 clerked for Judge Adam M. Conrad at the North Carolina Business Court in Charlotte before starting her career as an associate attorney in the business litigation group at Womble Bond Dickinson.

Sheppard’s journey to becoming an attorney was anything but conventional. With nine years between her undergraduate studies and law school, she entered Campbell Law with both experience and a passion for the legal field.

From an early age, Sheppard knew that she wanted to become an attorney. She started her education at East Carolina University, where she graduated with a business degree, focusing on accounting. College graduation was especially meaningful to her as she was the first of her 13 siblings to earn a college degree.

Despite her persistent dream of becoming an attorney, by her senior year of college, she was burnt out and not interested in going straight to law school. So, after graduation, she entered the workforce and worked in accounting before transitioning to a recruiting position with a finance and accounting company in Atlanta. Climbing the ranks to become a Division Director, Sheppard found success in this field. However, during her fourth year at the company, that persistent passion for the law was still there, and Sheppard decided to take a leap of faith and follow her childhood dream to become an attorney.

Knowing that she wanted to make a difference in her home state, Sheppard decided to attend law school in North Carolina. So, she transferred her recruiting job to North Carolina and started looking for law schools. Campbell Law stood out to her immediately because of its Christian values and its FLEX JD program, which allows students to attend law school part-time while juggling other responsibilities. Within the first week of school, she knew that she had made the right decision to pursue a legal career and eventually decided to leave her recruiting role, which she kept through her first semester of school, to fully dedicate herself to her legal education. Embracing the academic challenges wholeheartedly, she quickly excelled.

Sheppard then leaned into competitive advocacy where she found great success. Her first experience in the courtroom came from her notable semi-final finish in the Kilpatrick Townsend 1L Mock Trial Competition, where she was awarded Best Advocate in all the rounds where she acted as an attorney. During her 2L year, she went on to win the Richard A. Lord Intramural Moot Court Competition, where she was also awarded the Rick Edmundson Award, calculated by total Oral Preliminary Scores plus Brief Scores, and Best Overall Advocate. Her success extended beyond the courtroom as she won the Regional Championship for the American Bar Association (ABA) Client Counseling Competition and secured a third-place finish at the national level.
During her time at Campbell Law, Sheppard’s personal life also saw big changes. Sheppard balanced her responsibilities as a new mother to her daughter, born just two weeks after her 2L exams concluded.  Juggling the demands of motherhood alongside her academic commitments — including being a member of Campbell Law Review and serving as a torts scholar — and extracurricular activities, Sheppard epitomized resilience and determination.

As Sheppard approached her final year of law school, she decided to take on yet another challenge — joining the mock trial team. Her dedication and skill were once again on display as her team finished in the final four of the Tournament of Champions National Mock Trial Competition during her first semester on the team. In the spring, her team won the South Texas Mock Trial Challenge, where she was named Best Advocate in the final round. Sheppard was then invited to compete in Baylor Law’s Top Gun National Mock Trial Competition, the most challenging, invitation-only mock trial tournament in the nation. Sheppard finished law school in the Top 5 percent of her class, graduating magna cum laude.

After law school, Sheppard started clerking for the North Carolina Business Court. She credits Professor Michael B. Kent, who brought up the idea of pursuing a clerkship to Sheppard, for starting her down that path. As a first-generation attorney, she said she was not aware of this career path. Inspired by her meeting with Kent, she did more research on clerkships and discovered that North Carolina has a specialized business court that hears cases involving complex commercial and business law disputes. Her interest in becoming a business litigation attorney led her to apply to a clerkship position with the North Carolina Business Court. Sheppard landed a clerkship with the Honorable Adam M. Conrad of the North Carolina Business Court in Charlotte.

Her clerkship experience was everything Sheppard had hoped, she said. While she initially fought imposter syndrome in a new environment, Sheppard received her first writing assignment on her second day of work and was quickly thrown into the effort. As a self-proclaimed academic at heart, Sheppard said she enjoys the research and writing-intensive perspective of her job. She also enjoys the opportunity to see great advocacy from the lawyers that come before the court.

Reflecting on her journey, Sheppard underscores the significance of overcoming imposter syndrome and embracing one’s capabilities wholeheartedly. She aims to approach every undertaking with dedication and maximum effort, stressing the importance of one’s reputation and letting the quality of work speak for itself. As Sheppard prepares to transition to private practice with Womble Bond Dickinson as an associate attorney in the Business Litigation practice group, she plans to bring passion and excellence to her next phase of her legal career.