Havelock North woman Tessa Bromwich will travel to New York next month, to spend a year fine-tuning her legal skills under an impressive academic team at New York University.
Ms Bromwich was awarded a Fulbright New Zealand Graduate Award last week to take up the challenge, and will spend a yearstudying constitutional law and legal theory as part of a Master of Laws degree.
The 27-year-old is currently Wellington based but was born and bred in Hawke's Bay - graduating from Havelock North High School in 2001 before going on to study law at Victoria University.
She said the scholarship was an amazing opportunity and she was looking forward to all aspects of the sojourn.
"I'm obviously really looking forward to living in New York," she said. "I have never been there before but it's a city that everybody finds exciting, no matter what they like, so I am sure that will be wonderful.
"Also, is the atmosphere at the NYU law school and being taught by the really impressive teachers and learning from them. So that should be great."
Ms Bromwich, who often returns to her parents' home in Havelock North, has been granted one year of study leave from her job as an associate crown counsel and said the course would benefit her future career options.
"They have a wide range of choices you can choose from [at NYU] and that interest you," she said. "I guess both my jobs out of law school have concentrated on constitutional law a lot, so naturally I am interested to pursue that and also understand the basic theories and principles underlying the law."
Ms Bromwich previously worked as clerk for the Chief Justice in the Supreme Court and is among just 22 recipients of the graduate scholarships for study or research in the United States.
Earlier this year, two other Bay woman, Rachael Vernon of Hastings and Ngaire Addis of Havelock North, were awarded scholarships for their work in nursing and mathematics achievement data respectively. Mrs Addis is a senior teacher at Havelock North High School and Mrs Vernon heads EIT's School of Nursing.
