When she was a political science major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Neva Payson was surrounded by people who would go on to attend law school. She wasn’t interested in arguing before juries or becoming the President of the United States of America, and thus had a different plan for life after college: She was going to manage political campaigns.
And then something surprising happened. Neva enrolled in a course called Introduction to Legal Studies—and she loved it. She loved it so much, in fact, that she added legal studies as a second major. Not long after that, she took a course taught by a former judge who stressed to the class that the legal profession “needs more good people.”
Well, that settled that. Neva applied to law school during her senior year. A few months later, she enrolled at New England Law | Boston.
Now a 3L and an article editor for the New England Law Review, Neva is, in many ways, the same person she was in college. She plans to do good; she does not plan to do it in courtrooms or in the Oval Office.
Neva’s vision of how she will do good came into focus during her 2L year, when she took an elective called Administrative Law. The course is all about regulations—how government agencies create them, how judges review them. It is, in other words, the perfect course for someone who wants to understand how to use the law to improve the everyday lives of ordinary people.
It is on behalf of ordinary people—otherwise known as taxpayers—that the Office of the Inspector General for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (OIG) investigates allegations of government waste. Neva spent the summer of 2024 working as an OIG intern, gaining the kind of hands-on experience that brings the lessons of Administrative Law to life. And although she is prohibited from discussing the confidential work she did, she will happily tell you that it was a stellar experience.
Less than a year away from receiving her JD, Neva is as excited as ever to learn. In the classroom, courses like Local Government Law will allow her to further explore her chosen niche; in the Law Review office, the process of editing her peers will make her a better legal thinker.
But what Neva is most excited about is the group of people with whom she will do this learning. After all, one of the reasons she chose New England Law in the first place is because our alumni rave about the student community. Thankfully, her experience has lived up to the hype.