Two Harvard Law School students have been selected as Rappaport Fellows in Law and Public Policy and will spend the summer working with top local policymakers on issues that affect residents of Greater Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Felicia Cote ’12, a joint J.D./M.P.P. candidate at HLS and Harvard Kennedy School, will work in the Boston office of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. Jessica Goldberg ’13 will work on legal and policy projects at the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care.
The fellowship gives students from six Boston-area law schools the opportunity to help public officials address important problems and to learn about how public policy is created and implemented. This year, twelve fellows were selected and were matched with mentors from the Boston legal community to complete a paid ten-week summer internship with a Boston-area government employer.
Fellows also participate in weekly seminars on issues of law, public policy and public service relevant to Greater Boston. They will be joined in these seminars by Rappaport Public Policy Fellows, who include students from other Harvard graduate schools.
Cote received her undergraduate degree in public policy from Stanford University. At HLS, she is the president of HLS Child and Youth Advocates and a board member for the Tenant Advocacy Project. Before attending law school, she was a Teach for America corps member. She taught high school math in San Jose, Calif., and served as a corps member adviser for incoming participants. She previously interned at Advocates for Children and has served as a research assistant while in law school.
Goldberg graduated from Brown University with a degree in education studies and public policy and American institutions. At HLS, she is an intake director for the Tenant Advocacy Project and a board member for the Journal on Legislation. Before law school, Goldberg worked at Pre-K Now, a campaign of the Pew Center on the States that advocates for high-quality pre-kindergarten for three- and four-year-olds.
The program, now in its 11th year, is funded and administered by Suffolk Law School’s Rappaport Center for Law and Public Service, which was established through a gift from Phyllis and Jerome Rappaport ’49 and the Phyllis & Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation.