I came to Oregon to pursue environmental law with a focus on natural resource use and allocation. I am passionate about the human-oriented side of environmental advocacy, especially protecting and enhancing public health and providing quality access to safe and clean environments for all people. Through this pursuit, I also believe that all communities should have access to natural resources like water and clean, safe food, and that such resources should be protected for future generations. I would like to pursue this field while advocating in the fight for environmental justice and preservation of our nation’s land and resources. While at Lewis & Clark, I have been a member of the Northwestern Environmental Defense Council (NEDC) and Students for International Environmental Law (SIEL), assisting in research of local, national, and international environmental concerns and their effects on the resident populations. I am now in leadership for both organizations, assisting 1Ls with becoming involved with environmental law, including leading the clean water student group of NEDC. Through these opportunities, I have been able to write public comments and create public comment guides that put the legal concerns into lay terms so the public can understand what is happening in their own neighborhoods. Focusing on the public involvement and access to justice within my own communities is a big part of why I came to law school. Having firsthand experience with the foster system and seeing how the legal team did not have the best interest of the kids at risk in mind, I knew I wanted to be a change to that. I came to law school because I saw the flaw in the legal system and how people who were inside of it got treated. I knew I wanted to be a legal professional that people in need and in vulnerable situations could trust. In unstable and traumatic situations, getting legal professionals involved can often raise the tensions and stress. I want to be a part of changing the legal landscape and providing the needed assistance, while being aware of the sensitivities of each individual’s situation. I am interested in resource use and allocation and environmental harms internationally, as well as locally. This year, in my 2L year, I am participating in the International Animal and Environmental Legal Clinic on Lewis and Clark’s campus. This has given me a fantastic opportunity to see how policy does not only have local implications, but nationally and internationally. I also have been able to further explore how people and non-human species are impacted globally by environmental issues and environmental crimes. Environmental impacts are not restricted to only local communities but have effects that carry, often disproportionately impacting minority and lower income communities that have been systemically removed from policy and access to justice. I hope to become involved in resource conservation, land use and allocation, and environmental policy, being a part of our natural world so that it may continue to exist for generations to come.

Having firsthand experience with the foster system and seeing how the legal team did not have the best interest of the kids at risk in mind, I knew I wanted to be a change to that. I came to law school because I saw the flaw in the legal system and how people who were inside of it got treated. I knew I wanted to be a legal professional that people in need and in vulnerable situations could trust. In unstable and traumatic situations, getting legal professionals involved can often raise the tensions and stress. I want to be a part of changing the legal landscape and providing the needed assistance, while being aware of the sensitivities of each individual’s situation. While working at Aurora Municipal Courthouse, I was able to see the necessary work of Public Defenders in providing legal services in combating the injustices of systematic poverty, incarceration, and racism. I was also able to interact with all parties in a courtroom, seeing how each professional had a role to play in the outcome of each case. Through my work with the courthouse, I helped to maintain the cases, provide all necessary hearing information to all parties, and provide resources to Pro Se parties. This experience and interaction with all different kinds of parties moving through the legal system drives my intentions behind my law degree and is something I plan to carry through my practice. Currently, I spend a lot of my Wednesday nights volunteering pro bono at Saint Andrews Legal Clinic in Portland, Oregon. I am halfway through my law school education and intend to practice in public interest law once I get my J.D. A big component of this work is making legal resources more accessible and removing the barriers that community members may face. Family law was a big factor in me coming to law school in the first place and it is important to me to continue to build up these communities that I came from and have direct experience with. I am new to Portland, Oregon and am trying to get involved in the local communities of my new home to build connections but also to recognize the problems that individuals around me may face. Empathy is an essential skill in lawyering and by giving back to my community I hope to remove barriers to legal resources and make it more accessible to have voices heard when they are asking for help.

I came to Oregon to pursue environmental law with a focus on natural resource use and allocation. I am passionate about the human-oriented side of environmental advocacy, especially protecting and enhancing public health and providing quality access to safe and clean environments for all people. Through this pursuit, I also believe that all communities should have access to natural resources like water and clean, safe food, and that such resources should be protected for future generations. I would like to pursue this field while advocating in the fight for environmental justice and preservation of our nation’s land and resources. Now more than ever, this fight is essential to guarantee a healthy environment for not only the current generations, but for future generations. While at Lewis & Clark, I have been a member of the Northwestern Environmental Defense Council (NEDC) and Students for International Environmental Law (SIEL), assisting in research of local, national, and international environmental concerns and their effects on the resident populations. I am now in leadership for both organizations, assisting 1Ls with becoming involved with environmental law, including leading the clean water student group of NEDC. Through these opportunities, I have been able to write public comments and create public comment guides that put the legal concerns into lay terms so the public can understand what is happening in their own neighborhoods. It is important to me that environmental knowledge is accessible to communities that are being directly impacted. I am also interested in how policy and regulations are necessary to make clean energy accessible and more widely used. These experiences have given me the necessary research tools to be able to provide the legislative analysis of local, national, and international policies. I am interested in resource use and allocation and environmental harms internationally, as well as locally. This year, in my 2L year, I am participating in the International Animal and Environmental Legal Clinic on Lewis and Clark’s campus. This has given me a fantastic opportunity to see how policy does not only have local implications, but nationally and internationally. I also have been able to further explore how people and non-human species are impacted globally by environmental issues and environmental crimes. I have continued to explore the international impact of environmental harms through research in Iceland. In Iceland, my research was focused on how the increasing tourism impacts the local ecology, environment, and culture. I then worked with my research team to develop and publish a tourism guide accessible to encourage sustainable and respectful travel. The intent behind this was to make environmental knowledge more common while recognizing the impacts that tourism may have on Iceland.