Page 14 - 2020 Annual Awards Celebration

2020 OUTSTANDING SERVICE AWARD WINNERS
Dylan O’Brien
Mitchell Hamline School of Law
Law Student Award Winner
Dylan O’Brien is a third-year law student at Mitchell Hamline. He was born in Minneapolis, and lived there until 2002, when his family moved to Rockford, Minnesota. He later obtained his undergraduate degree from Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM). At MSUM, he initially majored in psychology, and served as a research assistant in
Dr. Ernest Hallford’s perception lab. Fascinated by the open-ended approach to academics he learned from Dr. Hallford, Dylan later added a second major in philosophy.
After graduating from MSUM, Dylan moved back to the Twin Cities, and worked in mental health for two years. To pursue his ongoing passion for philosophy, he attended Louisiana State University’s graduate program in that field. He completed his MA thesis on psychoanalytic ethics in 2017, under the supervision of Dr. François Raffoul, a distinguished scholar of existentialism and deconstruction.
Following graduate school, Dylan returned again to the Twin Cities. Seeking a more concrete understanding of social problems, he set out to become a public defender. He initially contacted the Wright County Public Defender’s Office during his 1L year at Mitchell Hamline, and remains with that office today. He involves himself with the office as much as he can, and enjoys the general work environment as well as the wide variety of responsibilities he receives there.
Dylan expects to graduate from law school in the spring of 2021, and hopes to continue on with public defense afterwards. In receiving this award, he would like to thank everyone at the Wright County Public Defender’s Office. Jenny Chaplinski and Kevin Tierney in particular have been significant mentors, but every single member of that office has earned his deepest gratitude. He would also like to thank his wife, Oanh, his parents, Mary and Tim, as well as his sister, Phoebe, for their continual support and encouragement.