After obtaining a law degree and starting a private firm, Norman native Tracey Langford has made her way back to OU.
Langford will serve as the attorney for the new Student Legal Services program at OU to provide students with free legal consultations, among other things.
She is available for students to speak with by appointment throughout the week and will have office hours from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Fridays, she said. The Student Legal Services office is located in Walker Tower, second floor west, room 235.
“We are building this program from the ground up, and we want students to know that we are here. Any problem that they have, they can come see us,” Langford said. “Some students don’t even really know that they have a legal problem, so even if they just think they do or have questions about a problem, they can come and we will help them figure it out.”
Langford has practiced law since since 2004, working at a public defender's office for three years until she started her own firm, where she focused mostly on family law, she said.
“I am passionate about legal representation not being something out of reach for people or something scary for people,” Langford said. “I want to take the stigma away from it. I want it to be approachable, and I want to be here for students, and that’s what I’m going to continue to try to do.”
Michael Lutter, economics senior and former Student Government Association vice president, said Langford was the type of person he had hoped would fill the position. Lutter pushed the initiative for the Student Legal Services program when he held the vice president position last year.
“She is a great woman, incredibly knowledgable in the fields that I think will be pertinent to students — everything from attorney law, to landlord tenant law, to misdemeanors,” Lutter said.
“One of the things we wanted to make sure was that we had someone that wasn’t going to intimidate students," Lutter said. "She is a very welcoming person and has great rapport with individuals, and I think she is going to do a great job.”
The job opening for the attorney position for Student Legal Services came at a time when Langford was able to seriously consider her career again, after letting her private practice dwindle down so she could focus on her daughter, she said.
“I have a little girl who is 6 and she started kindergarten this year," Langford said. "She was born with progressive hearing loss, so she reached profound deafness at age 3. It just takes a lot of time and training. If you ever really think about, 'How do you teach a deaf child to talk?' — it’s difficult.
“But she is doing great, she got cochlear implants, she’s in kindergarten, she’s on level with her peers," Langford said. "So this opportunity arose where I had time again to focus on my career and think about what I wanted to do, and I saw this job posting, and it was just perfect for me.”
Lutter said there will a poster campaign on campus titled “Come See Me” to help spread the word about the new program and introduce students to Langford. There will also be presentations held on how Student Legal Services will be able to assist students, he said.
SGA President J.D. Baker said the program will be helpful to students because legal issues are common circumstances and that a reliable source of information is crucial when dealing with them.
“Any type of legal service nowadays is so expensive — even just the consultations,” Baker said. “So I believe when you have students that are already struggling to make ends meet and pay for tuition, this program will help a lot.
“I believe that having these types of services will ultimately help us to support students holistically — in their lives, in and out of the classroom, academically, socially," Baker said. "That’s how we are going to have more successful students and have more reasons for them to stay here.”
