ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

MADDY WOMAK

Mady Womack, currently at Harvard Law School, is a former KU Student Body President who received her undergraduate degree in economics in 2018.

Womack Continues to Thrive at Harvard Law

Continuing to advance towards her JD degree at Harvard Law School, Madylan (Mady) Womack (KU Class of 2018) credits a great deal of her current success with her undergraduate days in and around the Economics Department while in Lawrence.

Mady currently serves as executive technical editor of an important journal (Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review).  Some of her other recent activities of note at Harvard have included traveling to South Africa and Mexico to consult on food law and policy to facilitate donation and reduce food waste; and arguing in court as part of the Family Justice Clinic on behalf of low-income clients in family law cases.

She said that the knowledge of economics she acquired at KU had served her especially well in law school. 

“The microeconomics of when to settle a lawsuit versus go to trial are extremely important and require not only a basic understanding of costs, but also utility maximization. Sometimes it may be more expensive to go to trial, but a client may choose to do so anyway if the opportunity to be heard is more important to them,” she said.

“Economics is also quite valuable in thinking about the effects of a particular legal rule. Designing a legal rule should entail thinking about efficiency and whether it incentivizes the right behavior from the affected actors. I often think back to my time in game theory when evaluating legal rules,” she explained.

“I also found my time in economics to be quite useful in doing research for a professor into securities law regulations. My understanding of evaluating costs, benefits, and thinking about who would be affected by the new policy is invaluable and something I gained from my economics degree.”

Two KU courses Mady said had been uniquely beneficial were applied microeconomics with Dr. Donna Ginther and labor economics with Dr. David Slusky.

“Professor Slusky was, and is, an incredible mentor who has always made time for me, whether I was pondering a career path or asking him to be the faculty advisor for my (student body presidential) campaign,” Mady added.

As an advocate for KU as Student Body President from 2017-18, her growing fascination with the law was becoming clear when she sought to file an amicus curiae brief in the Gannon lawsuit involving K-12 school finance to argue that the education article of Kansas’ constitution be more broadly interpreted to also require additional Higher Education funding.

In addition to her involvement in student politics while at KU, she also was a proud member of the Dole Institute of Politics Student Advisory Board, and her sorority, Alpha Chi Omega.

“I miss so much about Lawrence,” Mady said. “There is truly no place like Allen Fieldhouse to watch a basketball game - although Harvard-Yale games are pretty fun, too. I was lucky enough to be back in Lawrence when we won the NCAA Championship in 2022 and had so much fun celebrating downtown on Mass St.”

As the outgoing Student Body President in 2018, Mady, winner of the Economics Department’s Domenico Gagliardo Award, was featured as the 2018 Student Speaker at the departmental graduation ceremonies held in the Kansas Memorial Union.  At that event, Mady reflected on her journey in Lawrence and noted that she had come to KU originally planning on majoring in petroleum engineering. But she soon fell in love with economics after understanding how it could be used to help improve society.

“The application of economics to achieve the best public policy is especially important in these divisive times,” she said.

She also told the audience in Woodruff Auditorium during that speech that the most valuable lesson she learned outside the classroom while at KU was inclusiveness.

“KU made me a better person and helped me learn to fight for what I believe in,” she said.

Mady, who is on track to receive her law degree in 2025, will be interning this summer at Selendy Gay, a trial litigation boutique in New York City.  During the summer of 2024, she interned in Washington, DC in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement.