Lara O’Neill has joined UM Law as the project coordinator for the HOPE Public Interest Resource Center. She is eager to provide information, guidance and training to law students dedicated to community service and advocacy. In particular, Lara will use her background in international human rights to provide students with support and guidance.

Lara graduated from Brown University in 2001 with a degree in International Relations. She joined UM Law as a Miami Scholar and graduated magna cum laude in 2005. As a student and practicing attorney Lara used her legal skills to advocate for international human rights. After her first year of law school, Lara traveled to London as a HOPE Fellow and interned at Consortium for Street Children (CSC). At the CSC Lara researched different juvenile justice paradigms and investigated the overlap between child soldiers and street children. Lara received a second HOPE Fellowship during her final semester of law school and secured an internship at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

After her fellowship, Lara returned to Miami for graduation and was awarded the Innovative Service in the Public Interest award for co-founding LegalArt, Inc., an organization dedicated to providing artists of all disciplines with affordable legal services, grants and educational opportunities. After graduation, Lara practiced as a litigator and, in 2007, she returned to East Africa to intern with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees at the Kakuma Refugee camp in Northwest Kenya. At Kakuma, Lara was a member of the Resettlement Unit and conducted in-depth interviews and drafted reports addressing whether a refugee was eligible for resettlement. Prior to joining HOPE, Lara completed her federal clerkship with the Honorable James I. Cohn.