Student Legal Services Staff
Executive Director
Teresa Hepler
Teresa (she/her) is the sole attorney at Student Legal Services. She graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a Bachelor’s Degree in Classical Languages and Literatures and a minor in German. She then earned her M.A. in Humanities from the University of Chicago before working as a paralegal for 2 years at a plaintiff’s litigation firm where she focused on medical products mass torts. Teresa earned her law degree in 2017 from the University of Virginia School of Law, which awarded her the Mortimer Caplin Public Service Award. Before SLS, Teresa worked as a public defender for 3.5 years in New Hampshire, where she handled misdemeanor and felony cases for both adult and children, before working on criminal legal system reform for youth and adults for 2.5 years as a movement lawyer at the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville. She is barred in Virginia and in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia.
Spring 2025 Interns
Aria Parekh
Aria has been interning for SLS since Fall 2023. She is a second-year Economics major with a passion for various areas of law. Aria is also involved in Student Council, the Econ Club, the Indian Student Association and UPC. She grew up in both Maryland and Virginia, loves calligraphy, kayaking, running, biking, reading, and triple chocolate ice cream.
Emmett O'Brien
Emmett O'Brien is a third-year student from Beaufort, South Carolina, studying in the Politics Honors Program with a minor in French. Outside of SLS, he works as an editorial assistant on the Presidential Oral History Program at the Miller Center of Public Affairs and has served as an intern on the Crystal Ball newsletter at the UVA Center for Politics. Outside the classroom, Emmett is a member of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, the International Relations Organization, and the Cereal Club at UVA. In his free time, you can find him hiking, reading a Kurt Vonnegut novel, or avidly watching college basketball (Go Hoos!).
Mikayla Wolf
Mikayla Wolf is a second-year intending to major in Global Studies Security and Justice with a minor in Public Policy.