Two Miami Law Students Inducted into Prestigious Honor Society

Liana Nealon, a third-year law student from Coral Springs, and Lauren Lee Pettiette, 2L, born in Miami and raised in Shreveport, La., have been inducted into Iron Arrow, the University of Miami's highest honor society and its oldest tradition.

By UM News 10-22-2012

Nealon is the Director of Equity Playhouse, the Executive Vice President of the Charles C. Papy Jr. Moot Court Board, and Co-Chair of Canes Carnival. A member of the Society of Bar and Gavel, Nealon is involved in Phi Alpha Delta, Miami Law Women and OUTLaw, for which she formerly served as Treasurer. She spent her first law-school summer at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, a connection she made via the Center for Ethics and Public Service fellowship program. For her second summer, she worked as a HOPE Fellow at the Miami-Dade Public Defender's Office. Inspired by public interest work, she hopes to work as an assistant public defender after graduation.

Pettiette is Treasurer of the Society of Bar and Gavel. She graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans, and then, through Teach for America, taught third-grade students. Pettiette says she came to law school committed to empowering parents and students as an advocate of education. Pettiette, a Miami Scholar, worked this summer as a law clerk at the Public Defender Service in Washington D.C., in the Special Education division of Civil Legal Services. She is involved with the Center for Ethics and Public Service's Historic Black Church Program, Student Ambassadors, and Books and Buddies. She serves as president of the Children and Family Law Society, and as a Committee Chair for the Public Interest Leadership Board. She is also a tutor of boys under the Empowered Youth program and a volunteer at Chapman House. In the spring, Pettiette will work in the Children and Youth Law Clinic.

Founded by UM's first president, Bowman Foster Ashe, in 1926, a month after the university opened, the Iron Arrow Honor Society is steeped in the rituals of the Seminole Indian tribe and honors individuals who best exemplify five qualities: love of alma mater, character, leadership, scholarship and humility. Members are easily identified by their brightly colored Seminole jackets, worn at official functions.