Katie (Geleris) McClendon – John Jay Fellow, Fall 2011
Wife, Mom, Director of Publications at the Federalist Society
Juggling remote work and childcare has become the new normal for parents amidst the coronavirus pandemic. But the new normal was already normal for Katie (Geleris) McClendon, a Fall 2011 John Jay alumna who resides outside Atlanta, GA. Katie works full time as the Director of Publications for the Federalist Society while she and her husband Daniel—also a John Jay alumnus from Spring 2012—team up to care for their two young daughters, Grace and Abigail.
Born and raised in Glendora, California just outside of Los Angeles, Katie grew up in an evangelical home that took faith seriously. She attended public high school where she met with great academic success and went on to study political science at Biola University. There, she was drawn to the Torrey Honors Institute because of its well-rounded, classical approach to education that emphasized reading great literature and writing papers. To this day, she believes there is great value in learning this way and allowing contemporary application to happen naturally. The search for knowledge and truth can incidentally teach incredible skills for the workforce that reach beyond a single, narrow skill set.
When she completed her studies at Biola, Katie was uncertain of her future direction and returned home for a brief period, working and studying to take the LSAT as she considered the possibility of law school. It was around this time that she learned about the John Jay Institute, immediately intrigued at the prospect of something that combined her passions for politics and culture with a distinct approach to learning in community. And though her interest in law school was growing, she was not quite ready to make the decision; she applied to John Jay to give herself time between college and law school.
She loved the program for giving her the unique opportunity to spend her days reading and discussing books and ideas with fellow believers. It was an experience that she says grows more and more valuable to her as her life becomes ever busier. John Jay was also her first experience with the Book of Common Prayer. “It’s something I’ve grown to appreciate a lot more,” she says, especially now that she has young children of her own who learn and soak up lessons through repetition. In fact, Katie looks back on the rhythms of John Jay as a prototype for what her life routine should be: giving the first moments of her day to God in the mornings before diving into the day’s tasks and finishing it all with prayer at night.
After her time at John Jay, Katie went on to study law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She and Daniel got married after their second year of law school, and they moved to Washington, DC, after graduation, where Katie began working for the Federalist Society. Her job with the Federalist Society is a blessing, she says. Not working law firm hours allows her to spend time with her children while still pursuing legal work in an area that she is passionate about. The organization has also been amazingly accommodating by allowing her to work remotely since moving for Daniel’s job.
The mission of the Federalist Society is to promote a vision of government and law that finds roots in both the Constitution and in those concepts implemented by the Constitution that predate the document itself. One key concept the Federalist Society advocates is that judges should interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning (known as “originalism”), and statutes according to their text (known as “textualism”)—rather than according to their own ideas about what interpretation would produce the best results or what the legislature hoped the statute would accomplish. These ideas have become much more mainstream thanks to the work of the Federalist Society. The Society does not work for particular political outcomes, but seeks to advance the Framers’ vision for the separation of powers, federalism, and the rule of law. Additionally, it strives to keep legal culture active and vibrant through debates, often hosted on law school campuses, to help law students and lawyers think through their positions on subjects.
Katie believes the Federalist Society is a model for making change. The founders of the Federalist Society saw a problem in the legal culture nearly four decades ago and built an organization to address that problem through patience and steady work. This, she holds, should be the model for change in a society that often ineffectively cries out for immediate results instead of putting in effort and patient work to achieve goals.
In her role as the Director of Publications at the Federalist Society, Katie edits the articles published in the Society’s online journal, the Federalist Society Review. The journal is made up of works by law professors and practicing lawyers who write articles for her to review and publish on relevant legal subjects. “We don’t promote policies and we’re not here to pull for one team or another. My job is to make sure they are considering counter arguments and to press them on arguments they haven’t proved or made well.” In other words, her job is to make sure each article is the best that it can be in every way.
COVID-19 has not affected Katie’s everyday life to the extent it has many others—she still spends most of her days at home working and caring for her kids. In times like this, Katie finds comfort in the sovereignty of God. “God is God and we are not…and that should bring us hope and drive us to prayer.”