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Atlanta native Amanda McDowell was the NCAA women's singles champion at Georgia Tech in 2008. She was just a sophomore.

Injuries dogged her during the final two years of her college career, but she had two more productive years at Tech and made a nice go of it on the pro tour, getting as high as No. 450 in the world before calling it a career in 2012.

But these days, the former ITA All-American might be found on a different court.

In May, after three years of study, McDowell graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law. For the next 12 months, she will be a judicial law clerk in Seattle to the Hon. Richard Tallman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

After that, she plans to return to Atlanta and join the law firm of Alston & Bird. McDowell says her experience in tennis was good preparation for her future profession as a trial lawyer.

"When you're in trial, you have to perform," McDowell said. "There's a winner; there's a loser. It's competitive. I like all of that. It reminds me of tennis."

TennisRecruiting.net recently caught up with McDowell to ask her about her new career. McDowell, now 27, had advice for today's junior players, reminisced about her playing days at Georgia Tech and discussed her transition into a career in law.

Questions and Answers

Tennis Recruiting (TR): How did you decide to become a lawyer?

Amanda McDowell (AM): In high school and college, I always thought in the back of my mind that being a lawyer would be a good profession because it's a lot of reading and writing, and I always liked doing those things. At Georgia Tech, I minored in pre-law and took some law classes. My dad was a lawyer as well. I knew through talking with him what the life would be like, but I didn't really start thinking about it until I stopped playing tennis. I was always laser-focused on tennis. After I stopped, I had to do some soul-searching and find out what was next.

TR: Going to law school must've been a big change. How would you describe the experience?

AM: It was a really challenging three years, but also rewarding. It was an adjustment because the two years before while on tour, I was outside training six, seven hours a day. I had to transition to learning how to study 10-12 hours a day. But tennis prepared me for law school. Tennis is a lot of pressure. Dealing with competition pressure helped. It will help me as a lawyer hopefully as well.

TR: Let's go back to your days as a junior player. You were highly ranked nationally for a time. You got to No. 2 nationally at age 16, but you developed a stress fracture in your back and sat out a year. By the time you were a senior, you weren't necessarily expected to be a national champion someday. Is that fair to say?

AM: When I started at Georgia Tech, I was just happy to be healthy again, and by no means did anyone expect me to win a national singles title during my college career. I was not even in the starting lineup for part of my freshman year. I attribute my growth as a tennis player during my college career to several factors. First, Coach Bryan Shelton was incredible and really invested in me. His guidance was a big reason behind my improvement. I also was really fortunate to be surrounded by seven really encouraging and very competitive teammates. We pushed each other every day in practice, and I had never before had the opportunity to consistently practice with other players that were at or above my level. I also got to spend much more time on the tennis court than I ever did before.