Growing up in Northeast Philadelphia, Alison Debes remembers the jarring sight in some city neighborhoods of homes with boarded-up windows.

"These row houses were just like the ones in my neighborhood," she recalls thinking. "Why didn't they have windows?"

That early observation fueled Debes determination to serve people who faced economic hardships.

"I came to law school to work with low-income populations in Philadelphia," said Debes, a member of the law school's Class of 2010.

Debes now works as an employee relations specialist with the Department of Veterans Affairs, having earned a coveted spot in the Presidential Management Fellowship Program sponsored by the federal government.

Based at the Philadelphia Medical Center in University City, Debes is gaining valuable experience practicing law with the federal government. When the fellowship ends in two years, Debes will be eligible for a significant pay raise and can elect either to stay in place or switch to a different federal agency in another city.

The fellowship program is designed to encourage promising professionals to enter federal service and to groom them for careers in government.

At the VA Hospital, Debes ensures that employee due-process rights are upheld - a task that is nothing if not detailed.

"I'm doing a lot of really complex labor and employment issues, like the Family Medical Leave Act," she said. "I like it that the issues are so intricate. That makes it interesting."

As a law student, Debes received a solid grounding in government work before she even began the fellowship.

She was chosen for the prestigious program a year after receiving Drexel University's Carl "Tobey" Oxholm III Summer Law Fellowship, through which she spent a summer working in the Philadelphia City Solicitor's Office. There, she worked on environmental issues, from researching proposed energy legislation to helping develop a weatherization program for low-income homeowners.

That theme continued in Debes' co-op placement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where she worked on lead abatement projects in low-income neighborhoods. Not only did Debes learn about the law, she said, attorneys and co-op supervisors Mary Coe and Jeff Nast counseled humility.

"They explained to me about the responsibility and the power of working for the federal government," she said. "You really have a big impact on people's lives and you need to be really cautious about using that power."

Debes dedication to public interest law gained the notice of the law schools Career and Professional Development Office, which nominated her for the federal fellowship.

Debes credits the career office with helping her navigate the serpentine application process.

As a practitioner, she has newfound appreciation for professors like Tabatha Abu El- Haj and Emily Zimmerman, whose lessons and advice have proved to be spot-on accurate.

"I remember how Professor Abu El-Haj stressed a provision of Skidmore v. Swift thats key to the Fair Labor Standards Act, and it sure enough, its come up," Debes said. "And I'm writing a memo now for my boss boss, using the exact method that Professor Zimmerman told me to use. It came out perfectly."