Rutgers Law School Alumna Lands Prestigious Fellowship in Criminal Law and Advocacy

Teaching in New Orleans inspired a career helping others to navigate the system

As a high school teacher in her native New Orleans, Gwyneth O’Neill decided that she wanted to do more for her students than classroom lessons could deliver.

That decision meant learning how the law worked, which brought her to Rutgers School of Law-Newark where she gained an understanding of and experience in issues of constitutional rights and criminal law. O’Neill, currently serving a federal clerkship in Louisiana, is clear about her professional goal: “to build a career around ensuring that the criminal justice system is administered fairly and equitably.”

This summer she will take a major step toward that goal when she enrolls at Georgetown Law as a Prettyman Fellow to begin further training in the academic and practical aspects of courtroom advocacy on behalf of the indigent. With only three fellowships awarded each year, the two-year program is the most prestigious fellowship in the country for anyone interested in criminal law practice or clinical education focused on criminal justice.

Laura Cohen, clinical professor and director of the Rutgers Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic, sees O’Neill as the perfect choice for the honor.  “Gwyneth brings everything to the table: a keen, agile intellect; a deep, intuitive commitment to social justice; a clear-eyed passion for criminal and juvenile defense; a gift for teaching; and a natural affinity and respect for clients,” Cohen said.  “She will be an extraordinary mentor to Georgetown students.”

O’Neill had not considered a career in law until she returned to New Orleans as a teachNOLA Fellow after receiving a B.A. in English from Boston College.

She realized quickly that many of her students were intimately involved in these massive bureaucratic systems – for some, the foster care system, for a few, the criminal justice system, and for all, a public school system struggling to recover not just from years of failing the city’s youth, but from Hurricane Katrina.

“It was not enough to just do the best I could for the 90 or so minutes that the students spent with me each day,” O’Neill said. “As trite as it sounds, I wanted to make a real difference. I realized that I needed to learn how the law worked, so I could help my students navigate those systems, and, in many instances, change them.”

After three years teaching social studies in New Orleans’ charter high schools, O’Neill spent a summer in Uganda as a volunteer elementary school English teacher. Back home, she began her learning about the law as an intake specialist at the Louisiana Civil Justice Center.

Once her husband accepted a post-graduation clerkship with the New Jersey Appellate Division, she decided to return to the northeast for law school.  She chose Rutgers because of “the legacy of the People’s Electric Law School, the breadth of clinical opportunities and the diversity of the student body.”    

O’Neill graduated magna cum laude from Rutgers law school in May 2014. A Kinoy-Stavis Fellow, she took the Constitutional Rights Clinic for four semesters, during the second two of which she also was enrolled in the Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic (CYJC). As a Con Rights Clinic student, she was, among other activities, a member of impact litigation teams that addressed election law, human trafficking and post-Superstorm Sandy eminent domain issues.

The highlight of her CYJC experience was as a member of a project that successfully challenged the administrative transfer of youth who have been adjudicated delinquent and placed in the custody of the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission to adult prisons. She interned with New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Stuart Rabner, the Orleans Public Defenders and the ACLU national office.

O’Neill sees the two-year Prettyman Fellowship program as building upon the skills she learned in Rutgers’ Clinical Program, which was “without a doubt, the best part of my law school experience.”

“I expect that it [the fellowship] will enhance my ability to provide quality representation to indigent populations and to zealously advocate on behalf of my clients – to work tirelessly to ensure that the constitutional rights of vulnerable people are protected,” she said.  She also hopes it will provide her with the opportunity to return to the academic arena in the future.