PORTLAND —Preti Flaherty announces that Laura A. Rideout has joined the firm as an associate. Rideout will practice environmental law from the firm’s Portland office.

As a former Beliveau-McCarthy Fellow, Rideout first served Preti Flaherty as a summer associate in 2010 and 2011. Prior to joining Preti Flaherty, she interned at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Appellate Division, for the District of Maine. She resided in Washington, D.C., and served as assistant to the director of the Center on Politics and Foreign Relations at Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

Rideout earned her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of Maine School of Law, where she was executive editor of the Ocean and Coastal Law Journal as well as a competitor in the 20th annual Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition. She earned her undergraduate degree in political science, with honors, at the University of California, Davis.

Rideout is originally from Auburn and currently resides in North Yarmouth.