Arturo Gomez Molina
When Olivia Mello ’20 was in eighth grade, she wasn’t searching for a perfect college campus. She was searching for a sound.
Scrolling online, she found a video titled Beyond the Notes featuring Chapman University’s Dr. Grace Fong, the head of piano studies. Olivia had been studying piano since she was six, and something about the way Dr. Fong taught made the future feel real. “If college is anything like learning from this lady here, I want to be a part of it,” Olivia said.
Years later, when Olivia was accepted to Chapman, it wasn’t a generic admissions message that sealed it. Dr. Fong emailed her personally and invited her to travel to Italy that summer to perform and attend master classes at the Semper Music International Festival. Olivia’s first time seeing Chapman’s campus in person would come later, during orientation week, but by then, her decision was already made.
A Conservatory that Trained More than Musicians
Olivia graduated from Chapman’s Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, never wavering from her long-term goal of attending law school. What surprised her was just how much her conservatory training would translate. The workload and expectations in the conservator were intense, and the small class sizes meant students couldn’t blend into the background.
“It’s not the kind of place where you can just slip by and be fine,” Mello said. “Professors noticed the difference between coasting and pushing for excellence, and they were direct about what they thought we could achieve.”
Those standards shaped Olivia’s habits early. She learned how to prepare deeply, how to perform under pressure, and how to handle being put on the spot, a familiar feeling she would encounter often later in law school and during litigation. Looking back, she says the conservatory’s rigor built a foundation that made her legal education feel more manageable.
“I thought my time at Chapman was much more difficult than law school,” she said, “but I think it’s because Chapman prepared me so well that I found it much easier.”
A Campus Job that Became A Turning Point
While Olivia’s days centered on her conservatory training, one email changed the shape of her Chapman experience. Through first-generation programming, she learned about a student assistant role in Chapman’s Office of Legal Affairs. The position had typically gone to law students, but General Counsel, Janine Dumontel, was especially committed to mentoring first-generation students and opened up the opportunity to undergraduates.
Olivia applied, interviewed the attorneys in the office, and earned the job. What she found though was more than professional exposure. “Working at the Office of Legal Affairs was almost like having a family on campus,” she said. “Working there was one of the highlights of my day.”
Dumontel’s mentorship wasn’t limited to workplace tasks. She passed along scholarship opportunities to Mello, wrote recommendations, and modeled a version of the legal profession that was rooted in encouragement and impact. That mentorship later played a direct role in Olivia’s biggest leap. As she prepared her law school applications, she nearly ruled out Yale Law School entirely. The acceptance rate felt impossible, and the idea of even applying felt unrealistic. Dumontel pushed back and told Mellow not to count herself out.
Mello took Dumontel’s advice to ‘throw her hat in’ and submitted her application the day before the deadline. Two weeks later, Yale admissions called to offer her a spot. After that phone call, Mello knew there were a lot of new opportunities to be taken in front of her.
Building Leadership, Not Just A Resume
Outside the classroom and her campus job, Olivia stacked her time with leadership and service, often choosing roles that felt intimidating because she believed discomfort was a kind of growth.
She served as President of the Pre-Law Society, which helped her build connections that led to internships in family and immigration law, was in the Chapman Ambassadors Program, where she learned how to represent the university and engage with donors and other important constituents of the school, and also served on the advisory board for Promising Futures, a program that supported first-generation students.
Her proudest legacy is the First-Generation Mentor Program, which she founded after seeing how many students needed a clearer bridge into college. One of the club’s early events brought 200 middle school students to Chapman for tours and panels. The program became a sustained commitment with Saturday sessions built alongside faculty support and student volunteers.
Mello also found community through faith and service. She served on the board of the Chapman Newman Catholic Fellowship and played piano weekly for on-campus Mass. Showing up, even when she was tired, became her own kind of practice.
From Yale Law to Litigation, with Music Still Ringing in the Background
Olivia graduated from Yale Law School in 2024 and began work as a litigation associate handling complex commercial disputes. She researches legal issues, drafts arguments, and works with teams to build strategy in high-stakes, adversarial settings. It is intense, competitive, and constantly demanding, which is exactly what she wanted.
When Olivia talks about the connection between piano and litigation, she doesn’t describe it as a quirky fun fact. She describes it as a through-line. Both require focus, precision, stamina, and performance under pressure. Both reward people who prepare when no one is watching.
“Theres quite a bit of overlap,” Mello said. “Because there are many sorts of interpretations in music and in law, Chapman’s conservatory gave me the tools and framework that have helped work through both.”
And while her career is now centered on the law, she hasn’t left music behind. She still plays, and she still sees her training as a gift. One she hopes will come “full circle” again in ways she can’t fully predict yet.
