Story by Dwain Hebda
When J. Dillon Pitts (’21) looks back on his educational and career journey thus far, he sees a winding path that led through a lot of unexpected territory. The Mississippi native initially enrolled in the pharmacy program at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, an academic field that lasted “about a month,” he said.
Next up was accounting, which he stuck with nearly to graduation but had a last-second change of heart that caused him to abruptly enter the business college, ultimately graduating with a degree in business marketing and corporate relations, and a minor in manufacturing engineering. Looking into post graduate options with an interest in law, Pitts’ yearn for the unconventional led him to Little Rock.
“I had some good mentors and those mentors put me in connection with the Clinton School,” he said. “I was wrapping up at Ole Miss and decided I wanted to go to law school, but also was interested in public service, so the Clinton School was the best bet on that. Dean Rutherford came and spoke at Ole Miss; I met with him, had breakfast, and after that I visited Little Rock, visited the school and was set.”
Pitts chose the hybrid track where the first half of his Clinton School education earned a law degree and the second focused exclusively on public service. The experience was further shaded by the onset of COVID-19, which made he and his cohort noteworthy for having completed their Clinton School experience half in person and half virtually.
“We were getting ready to gear up for the big summer project, and I was supposed to be going abroad when the rumblings [about shutdowns] started coming in,” he said. “One of the big draws of the Clinton School is the projects in the summer, so that was tough. It was just a lot of scrambling to find a project to meet the requirements for graduation.”
Pitts found a project in Arkansas with the state’s extension service where he helped evaluate the state of infrastructure across the Natural State. Today he laughs about how the last-minute substitution of a project actually laid the foundation for casework he’s doing today.
“We went across Arkansas to a lot of the rural counties and we did essentially a report card of infrastructure, things such as roads and bridges, wastewater, sewer and electricity,” he said. “Who knew that I would be doing a lot with power now in my job? It’s just funny, the things that you’d find interesting 10 years ago, eight years ago, and basically, I’m doing that at least twice a week.”
The experience of the Clinton School, while unusual due to circumstances, still wound up paying dividends for Pitts in his legal career. Following his first year in the program, he developed a relationship with the Arkansas Economic Development Commission which landed him his first job in Little Rock and eventually led him back home.
“I fell in love with economic development and getting businesses to come to Arkansas and now that’s kind of what I do here, in a way,” he said. “That’s a facet of my practice now is economic development and public finance. We are competing against Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and the rest of the South. We’re all competing for the same businesses, so it’s really who can put the best package together for these corporations and entities.”
In evaluating his Clinton School education and the effect it has today on his day-to-day work, Pitts said the duality of his experience has helped him approach projects and problems with a more wholistic set of skills.
“Law school is definitely about teaching you how to methodically change your way of thinking and it changes you in everything you do,” he said. “The Clinton School was data-driven, qualitative. It was not all statistical, but there was a heavy statistical facet that was extremely helpful. That’s something where, if you grab Joe Blow who just graduated law school, he has no idea how to run statistical analysis.
“If you’re doing what most clinical graduates are doing, which is data driven, they have to have the supporting data to continue doing the good work. I don’t think I realized that it would be that important in my work life, but it’s something that benefited me in the world of law as well. Having that opportunity to learn and grow is how I’ve been able to set myself apart.”
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