2023 CLEA Student Awards for Clinics and Externships: Penn State Dickinson Law’s Mallory Turner

The Clinical Legal Education Association invited law schools to nominate students as their Outstanding Clinic Student or Team and Outstanding Externship Student. This series includes submissions from law schools celebrating their outstanding students. 

Penn State Dickinson Law’s Mallory Turner

Mallory Turner was selected for the CLEA Outstanding Clinic Student Award because of her excellent work representing clients of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic, her thoughtful contributions in class, and her commitment to providing legal services to underserved populations. Regarding lawyering skills, Mallory has become adept at delivering difficult news to clients—an unavoidable task when working with noncitizens whose status may prevent them from accessing critical resources. Her clients appreciated her for being empathetic yet frank, and for thinking creatively about solutions outside of the law.

Two anecdotes shed light on Mallory’s current and future contributions to her community. First, during our class session on the history of community health centers, Mallory contributed important historical and cultural information to our class discussion by sharing her research on the history of the Tufts-Delta Health Center in Mississippi; her valuable comments drew on both her experience growing up in rural Mississippi and her prior work as a College and Career Readiness Coordinator at a community college there. Second, Mallory participated in the inaugural Health Equity Immersion, a five-hour learning experience offered to law students and medical students developed to educate learners about the social and political roots of health disparities in the region. Afterwards, Mallory shared “I felt I got to meet people whose lives were dedicated to their surrounding community. This is how I see my future as well because I want to become a Law Clinic Professor.”