Genna Petre, Class of 2015, has been selected for the Attorney General’s Honors Program with the U.S. Department of Justice, the most prestigious federal entry-level hiring program of its kind.
“Genna Petre is a great student and a great person, well deserving of this honor, and we’re glad she’s using her talents to serve in this way,” said Elon Law Professor Enrique Armijo, who serves as Petre’s faculty adviser.
Petre is the Business Editor of the Elon Law Review, the President of Innocence Project at Elon Law, a Dean’s Fellow working with entering students during their transition into law school, and a member of Elon Law’s Moot Court Board, through which she competed at the 2014 National ABA Moot Court Competition in New York City. She currently works in the Elon University Humanitarian Immigration Law Clinic. Petre interned with the Guilford County District Attorney’s Office in High Point, North Carolina after completing her first year of law school.
Petre worked through the U.S. Department of Justice Honors Program this summer at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Office of General Counsel, Employment Law & Ethics Branch in Washington, D.C.
“My work with Elon Law Review and Elon Moot Court have been crucial to my analytical and writing skills, which has made drafting memoranda and briefs less daunting than if I lacked that kind of experience,” Petre said, reflecting on her summer work experience. “Additionally, my work as a research assistant paid off greatly, as much of those topics overlapped with the work I did for the Bureau of Prisons. Finally, Elon Law prides itself on creating lawyer-leaders, and I think that has been very important in my work experience. Instead of constantly waiting to be assigned tasks, I have taken the initiative to seek out different project opportunities from more experienced attorneys. I have learned to think about problems in different ways in order to reach an outcome on my own, instead of continuously seeking guidance from others. As a result, I accomplished more this summer than I ever hoped.”
Petre is a graduate of Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in legal studies. While at Ithaca, Petre interned with the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office and was a co-founder of the Ithaca College Mock Trial team, which competed at the national competition in 2012. She continues to be active with the Ithaca College Mock Trial team, judging competitions and holding coaching sessions with the pre-law students when possible.
“I’m grateful to the professors both at Elon and Ithaca for their encouragement and guidance throughout my education,” Petre said. “With the knowledge and skills I have developed in school and in a variety of legal practice experiences, I plan to contribute significantly to the administration of justice on a national level as a member of the Attorney General’s Honors Program.”