Northern Essex Community College alumna Mabel Covarrubias-Doucette is the 2020 recipient of the college’s Outstanding Alumni Award, granted annually to a graduate who has achieved career-related success, is active in the local community and has exemplified active support for the college’s efforts.
Covarrubias-Doucette is a practicing attorney who received her law degree from New England Law as well as two bachelor’s degrees from UMass Lowell and an associate degree in paralegal studies from Northern Essex. She began the journey to her current career at age 43. Previously the successful co-owner of a wireless communications construction company, she found herself hitting restart following the great recession, which forced her company to close after 15 years of operation.
“I was at a crossroads in my life,” she said.
By 2011, she set up a meeting with a college academic counselor to get started on a new career path. Within one hour of arriving on campus, she was already sitting in on her first college course. She graduated the following year.
Covarrubias-Doucette is now the owner of MCD Immigration Law, based in Salem. A practicing attorney, who grew up in both the U.S. and Mexico, she specializes in the areas of immigration and naturalization laws.
Her nomination was announced following a vote by the Alumni Board, with support from college President Lane A. Glenn.