STUDENT PROFILE
OF NOTE
In Pursuit of Learning Rhea Mallett, Esq. LLM Candidate Dec. 2022
Having already completed law school at Columbia, passed the bar exam, and pursued a legal career, it was while volunteering to help protect a local river that Rhea Mallett decided to pursue an LLM in Environmental Law at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. Now, almost done with her studies, Rhea describes her decision to pursue an LLM as one of the best decisions she ever made. Rhea has been an attorney at a large private firm, to an adjunct professor, worked in government, has been involved in politics and most recently became an elected Village Trustee.
Can you tell me a bit about your background? Let’s jump right in, did you always want to be a lawyer? Yes, at a very young age I realized the power of persuasion and learned it could be a full-time career as an attorney! I was interested in criminal justice reform since high school when I watched a news program highlighting our prison system and obvious disparities in our sentencing laws. I continued this interest in college, even while majoring in Latin, by writing my senior thesis on ancient Roman law where sentences for crimes were determined specifically by one’s social class. A couple of years after becoming an attorney I became a criminal defense attorney for the Legal Aid Society in NYC, representing those who were arrested and could not afford counsel, and soon after I worked full-time as an advocate for prison reform.
Stepping back in time for a moment then, you have a JD from Columbia University Law School, what made you want to pursue an LLM and, ultimately, why Pace?
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H A U B L AW A L U M N I M A G A Z I N E
“So if anyone is thinking of focusing on a new area of the law, my advice is do it now— the sooner, the better. I have already gotten everything I had hoped for and more out of my LLM experience.” I was recently volunteering to help protect a local river when I recognized how much more effective I could be if I knew more about wetlands, groundwater, and land use law generally. I began researching
