Law School Student Obenauf Receives Public Interest Fellowship

Meg Obenauf, Law School Class of '98, is the third recipient of the Edith W. Fine Public Interest Fellowship, named for the late associate justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court. Obenauf has accepted a two-year Americorps position at the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii and will be working exclusively with victims of domestic violence on the island of Maui.

The annual Fine Fellowship supports the work of a Harvard Law School graduate who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership and commitment to public service work, especially in the areas of civil or criminal legal assistance to the poor, women's reproductive rights, and antidiscrimination work.

Friends, family, and colleagues of Judge Fine established the fellowship in 1996 to honor her distinguished public service career and pioneering role as one of the earliest women graduates of Harvard Law School. Fine, a member of the Class of 1957, died of cancer in 1995 at the age of 64.

Fine was one of five women in the Class of '57, the fifth graduating class at the Law School to include women. Her diverse career included Peace Corps service as an administrator in Lima and Peru, work with the Office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, D.C., and time as assistant corporation counsel for the city of Boston. She taught law at Yale University and the University of Puerto Rico. In 1973 Fine became presiding justice of the Brookline Municipal Court, the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1982, and the state appeals court in 1984.