From the Beach to the Bar Exam

At age seven, Rehoboth Beach resident Emma Ballentine (AS21) already knew she wanted to be a lawyer. Today, the law school student at a top-tier university is close to making that goal happen. But the path to her dream wasn’t a typical one.

Upon graduating from Cape Henlopen High School in 2018, finances were tight, so Ballentine chose to enroll at the UD Associate in Arts Program (AAP) and make use of Delaware’s Student Excellence Equals Degree (SEED) Scholarship. The SEED Scholarship, funded by the State of Delaware, covered eight semesters of tuition for students enrolled at UD AAP campuses in Dover, Georgetown, or Wilmington.

In the program, Ballentine was inspired by criminal justice professor Emma Jean Joseph, who had taken the associate-to-bachelor path herself and attended Widener Law School in Wilmington. In her, Ballentine found both a mentor and a role model. As a first-generation student on a tight budget, Ballentine had worried that she might not be accepted to law school without a more traditional four-year university degree; however, Joseph’s own path to law school helped Ballentine realize it was indeed within her reach.

“Emma Jean Joseph was one of the first people whose story made me realize that it was actually possible for someone like me to attend law school,” she said. “She gave me hope while I was working on my associate degree.”

For her part, Joseph saw the first-year student’s potential immediately.

“Emma Ballentine is one of the best students I have taught at the University of Delaware,” Joseph said. “Of the thousands of students I’ve taught on the Newark, Wilmington, Dover, and Georgetown campuses, Emma ranks in the top one percent.”

With an eye toward law school, Ballentine always planned to major in criminal justice. However, she said, her classes with English professors James Keegan and Ethan Joella inspired her to add English as her future minor.

English professor James Keegan also remembers Ballentine as one of his most promising students. “Emma is one of the finest examples I know of the truth that good grades are a by-product rather than an objective,” he said. “She is present for what she can learn rather than what she can earn.”

“Each of those professors were hands-on and took their work seriously,” Ballentine said, noting that her professors’ recommendations were instrumental in her admittance to law school. “I attribute a lot of my success to the network I created through AAP.”

Due to the number of Advanced Placement and college credits she had accrued while still in high school, Ballentine completed the rest of her UD degree in just one year. Graduating in 2021, she earned a full academic scholarship to Penn State Law School, a dream that made all the preceding years of hard work worthwhile.

While Ballentine has always planned a career in criminal prosecution — which she will pursue further this summer in a post-grad position at the Delaware Department of Justice — she is currently interning at Penn State Law’s Criminal Appellate and Post Conviction Clinic. Under the guidance of a professor, she and her fellow interns provide free legal assistance to incarcerated clients working on their appeals.

“The experience has been fulfilling because I never saw myself as a defense attorney, but I have learned to value the rights we have as citizens and the due process within the criminal justice system,” she said.

Article by Erin Tanner

Photos courtesy of Emma Ballentine