Benevolent Traveler
“To be head of Willamette Law Review was not a dream I had when I first started law school,” said Hadley W. Rose, editor in chief of the journal. “But after working on Law Review during my second year, I started to understand the potential of the opportunities I’ve had in my life. I decided I needed to make the most of those opportunities.”
“My self confidence has skyrocketed since coming to law school. I see so much potential in my legal training.”
Rose’s vision for success has never been shortsighted — or self-serving. She has traveled the world to help bring new opportunities to people in need. “I believe a person with professional experience can have an important impact on others,” she said.
Rose first traveled abroad while on break from Pennsylvania State University. During the summer of 2004, she spent three weeks in the Republic of Ghana in West Africa as a volunteer with the Navigators, an interdenominational mission group. “We focused on mentoring people in their spiritual growth and discipleship,” she said of her work in Africa.
Rose completed her bachelor’s degree in English literature at the end of 2004 and soon began planning for a career in law. “I started researching legal careers during my final year of college,” said Rose, who considered several schools before deciding on Willamette University College of Law. “I grew up in Salem, so I was familiar with Willamette University. The law school offered me a good scholarship. That, plus the low living expenses, made Willamette an easy choice.”
Since enrolling in WUCL in the fall of 2005, Rose has immersed herself in a wide range of extracurricular programs, including Moot Court and Willamette Law Review. She also has served as a volunteer tutor in the Street Law Program, which provides public legal education to students at an alternative high school in Salem.
“The school is for young mothers who had to drop out of regular high school,” Rose explained. “The program teaches them the basics of criminal law, family law and how to protect their individual rights.”
In December 2005, Rose got another stamp in her passport when she traveled with a friend to the Kingdom of Morocco in northern Africa. While there, Rose volunteered at a local orphanage. The experience underscored the obvious discrepancies between her own childhood and those of many Moroccan children. “My first image of the children was of rows of crying babies laid out on the floor,” she said. “We helped care for the babies and played with the older kids.”
As a 2L, Rose worked on a research project that changed her life. She wrote a paper on the Grameen Bank, which provides small, low-interest loans to villagers in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Rose was so impressed with the program that she applied for a summer internship with the bank. Before long, she was off to Bangladesh — where she spent two months working with local villagers, primarily women, learning to start their own businesses. “I really liked that the bank’s founder created a program that meets the cultural needs of the people,” Rose said. “I wanted to learn from people who really thought through their problems and developed solutions for themselves.”
When Rose returned to Willamette for her final year of law school, she took over as editor in chief of Willamette Law Review. “It was a big step for me,” said Rose, who manages all aspects of journal production and a large staff of editors. “My self confidence has skyrocketed since coming to law school. I see so much potential in my legal training. I have confidence I can look at a problem and use the knowledge gained from my law degree to solve it.
“My parents always told me that I can do whatever I want,” said Rose, who hopes to land a job with a firm specializing in small business or corporate law after she graduates in May. “I believed them when I was young, but in high school I lost that idea. Law school has allowed me to believe it again, to believe in myself.”