Marissa Schwartz L’22

Marissa is committed to advocating the rights of children and families especially, and those facing obstacles to being heard. She is interested in how institutional policies inflict psychological harm on individuals and plans to integrate the use of empirical evidence of the effects of policies into her practice as a public interest lawyer. Marissa graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in Psychology and Spanish, where she was a research assistant in the Bilingualism & Second Language Acquisition Lab and Social-Emotional Character Development Lab. For her senior thesis, Marissa explored how school language environment and language policies affect Spanish-English bilingual adolescents’ attitudes toward language and identity.

At Penn Law Marissa is an advocate at the Custody and Support Assistance Clinic at Philadelphia Legal Assistance, where she serves clients with upcoming hearings. She also volunteers with the Criminal Record Expungement Project. Marissa is also a member of the Light Opera Company.

Outside of school, Marissa enjoys baking, winning at trivia night, and learning more about societal inequity and movements to dismantle it.