Next Stop for Orfalea’s Academic Excellence Winner: Harvard Law School

During Gabrielle Gutierrez’s first day volunteering at the Juvenile Services Center in San Luis Obispo, two inmates taught her how to play chess.

During the lesson, which took place at the detention center’s community area, the young offenders were patient and polite, even asking Gutierrez permission to move her pieces.

“It was different from what I expected,” Gutierrez said. “I think I was surprised at how these very, very respectful people could have done very bad things.”

Gutierrez is graduating from Cal Poly in Spring 2025 with a degree in business administration, and will attend Harvard Law School in the fall. She will receive the Academic Excellence Award for her work in maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA.

“I’m very honored and proud of the work I’ve put in the last four years,” said Gutierrez, whose concentration is management and human resources. “It feels like everything is paying off, and the various sacrifices I have made and the hard work I’ve put in is worth it.”

Gutierrez is excited to graduate and have time off to spend with her family before going to law school but is sad to leave her sister at Cal Poly, who is a sophomore.

Gutierrez has not decided what area of law she would like to pursue after law school.

Gabrielle Gutierrez plans to attend Harvard Law School. (Photo: Angelique Roeloffs)

From a previous internship at Patrick Malone and Associates, she enjoyed working in personal injury and medical malpractice law. She got the internship after a personal injury lawyer put her in contact with the firm.

“I really enjoyed helping, I don’t want to say helping people makes it right because obviously wrongs have been done but just helping fight for other people when they don’t have somebody, when they can’t fight for themselves,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez loves the East Coast and knows that she was meant to be there for law school.

“I hope to be the person that somebody wants a picture with one day because I made an impact on their life.”

Gabrielle Gutierrez

“Harvard has very good faculty and they have professors who have done so many different things,” Gutierrez said. “They have produced Supreme Court justices, presidents, they have access to so many resources.”

Gutierrez grew up near Boulder, Colorado, where she played singles tennis for her high school and was captain her senior year. Growing up skiing, in high school, she volunteered for Ignite Adaptive Sports, an organization to help people with disabilities ski.

“Learning to ski was probably the lower priority, it was more that they were being safe and having fun,” Gutierrez said. “We would talk and we would have snowball fights and go up into the lift together and they would tell me a lot of their interests, and they were all very very sweet kids.”

Gutierrez was inspired to volunteer at the juvenile hall through a non profit organization called Restorative Partners after her friend Emma Carter told her about it. Gutierrez had been looking for volunteer work because of her good experience volunteering for Ignite Adaptive Sports.

She started at the end of her sophomore year. The juvenile hall is a 50 bed facility that holds people under 18 who have been arrested for criminal acts or violating probation, according to the County of San Luis Obispo. There a variety of rehabilitative programs offered through Restorative Partners and people in the facility attend school daily.

As a volunteer, Gutierrez led programming in subjects like art, music and chess. She described the struggles of building relationships with the juvenile inmates, recounting times where inmates would say something inappropriate to her and did things to make her feel uncomfortable.

Gabrielle Gutierrez was recognized during the 2025 commencement ceremony. (Photo: Pat Pemberton)

“It takes months and months to build relationships with them, but as time went on and as I continued to show up for them and show that I’m actually going to keep coming, and it’s not just somebody that they’ll talk to, open up and then they are just going to leave, they started to open up to me and they were really polite to me,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said that empathy and consistency really paid off in her volunteering job to get the juvenile inmates to trust her, recounting helping a boy write letters to his girlfriend.

“I think one of the most surreal things about volunteering there in general is like walking out of the juvenile hall at the end of the volunteer shift,” Gutierrez said. “It’s just very strict rules in there and at the end of the day, like I got to leave and the other volunteers got to leave, and they had to stay there, so that was a very humbling experience.”

Gutierrez learned through her volunteer work she does not want to pursue a career in criminal justice.

“That being said, I don’t think I would be a criminal defense attorney or prosecutor,” Gutierrez said. “I have a lot of respect for people who are able to do that. I think I would have a lot of trouble separating work from my personal life.”

Gutierrez came into Cal Poly as a political science major but quickly switched to business as she thought that it would give her more options if she did not end up going to law school. She credits business for giving her people, networking and professional skills, as well as helping her be able to write well. Negotiations was her favorite class at Cal Poly

Outside of classes, Gutierrez got involved in her major through peer mentoring in her winter quarter of sophomore year. In her job, Gutierrez provides individualized and comprehensive support to OCOB students who want a mentor, referring them to different Cal Poly services.

Gutierrez helps set goals with students throughout the quarter and has about 3-4 mentees each quarter.

“I think the biggest thing is listening to them and knowing I’m there for them, I’m not there to judge them, I’m not there to tell them what to do,” Gutierrez said. “Really I’m there to help them and support them.”

Peer Mentor Program Coordinator Drexler Alcantara is grateful for all that Gutierrez has given to the program and said she has been a wonderful peer mentor whose impact goes far beyond words.

Gabrielle Gutierrez finished her studies at Cal Poly with a 4.0 GPA. (Photo: Angelique Roeloffs)

“Through her dedication, compassion, and tireless hard work, she has created a supportive space for mentees to grow, thrive, and believe in themselves,” Alcantara said. “Gabrielle shows up with purpose, listens with care, and inspires others through example.”

Gutierrez likes to go on long walks in her free time, and being done with the LSAT, she is glad to have more time for herself.

“I think walks are a good opportunity to spend time alone and reflect on things,” Gutierrez said. They help me decompress a lot.”

Gutierrez said when she was doing law school interviews, she would go on a walk right before. She also uses the time to talk to family members and friends outside of San Luis Obispo.

Recently, Gutierrez has started doing a low impact workout class at The Bar Method, using lighter weights to do slow and controlled body movements. Gutierrez said she wants to find a place to do this in Cambridge.

In thinking about the future, Gutierrez thinks back to her experience at Patrick Malone and Associates where they helped a client get a case settled and the client came into the office the next day wanting a picture with a lawyer. Gutierrez described the work this law firm did as “meaningful work.”

“I hope to be the person that somebody wants a picture with one day because I made an impact on their life,” Gutierrez said.

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