From community planning to Maine Law
From the moment Alaina Mallette first began studying the relationship between people and the landscapes they inhabit, she kept bumping up against the same realization.
Communities rarely struggle because they lack good ideas. More often, they struggle because the law determines which ideas are actually possible.
It was a lesson she learned over years spent working in environmental policy, land-use planning and conservation across three countries. Whether helping agencies prepare for catastrophic wildfires in Mexico, teaching land-use planning in Ukraine or reviewing development proposals in North Carolina, she found herself drawn to the same moment in every project: when the planners reached the limits of what they could do and the lawyers stepped in.
“There were cases we couldn’t solve or couldn’t come to a logical conclusion on,” Mallette said. “Watching the land-use attorneys work through those problems was fascinating. You could see the creative process happening as they interpreted the law.”
This fall, Mallette arrives at the University of Maine School of Law to become one of those attorneys.
It is a destination that has been years and thousands of miles in the making.
Roots in Geography and Global Exploration
Growing up in northern New York, surrounded by the Adirondacks and the Thousand Islands, Mallette developed an early appreciation for the outdoors. But just as influential was a high school Spanish teacher who regularly organized trips abroad, introducing her to new cultures and convincing her that the world was much larger than the one she knew.
Those twin interests, the environment and international studies, followed her to Syracuse University, where she studied geography alongside Spanish language, literature, and culture.
“I loved different languages and different environments,” she said. “I’ve always been interested in understanding how people interact with the places where they live.”
Environmental Work Across Three Countries
That curiosity eventually led her to Mexico through the Peace Corps while she completed a master’s degree in environmental science with a focus in coupled natural and human systems. What began as graduate research on wildfire management evolved into work with Mexico’s federal environmental agency, where she helped develop ecological ordinances and local land-use regulations aimed at protecting natural areas in Puebla.
Looking back, she now sees those years as the foundation of everything that followed.
“That was really the birthplace of my land-use background,” she said.
It was also where she met her future husband.
After the Peace Corps, the couple moved to Ukraine, where Mallette accepted a Fulbright teaching grant, teaching courses in geographic information systems and land-use planning before eventually returning to the United States.
By then, she knew she wanted to spend her career helping communities navigate growth responsibly. She joined New York’s Tug Hill Commission before later relocating with her husband and young daughter to North Carolina, where she worked as a senior planner reviewing development proposals for a municipality.
Planning gave her a front-row seat to the competing pressures facing growing communities like economic development, housing, conservation and infrastructure. It also showed her where planning alone fell short.
The legal questions were often the hardest ones to answer.
“I realized I was professionally ready for something different,” she said. “Law felt like a way to engage with a topic I already loved, but at a deeper level.”
When she began looking at law schools, Maine Law quickly emerged as the right fit—not simply because of its nationally recognized environmental law program or the opportunity to join the Environment and Energy Fellows Program under Professor Anthony Moffa, but because it offered something harder to quantify: community.
During one campus visit, what began as a conversation with Career Services about her résumé quickly became a conversation about her family, her daughter and the life they hoped to build.
Now settled in North Yarmouth, her family is already embracing their new home. Her daughter, she says, has fallen in love with the Maine coast.
“She’s a very nautical girl,” Mallette said with a smile. “Since we’ve gotten here, she’s in her happy place.”
For Mallette, Maine represents something else entirely: the chance to combine years of international experience, environmental planning and public service with the legal education that has long felt like the missing piece.
“I’ve always wanted to help protect the places where people live,” she said. “Law is the next step.”