Past Scholarship Winners

Mersadie Murray (“Sadie”) is ranked first in her class of 282 students at the University of Wisconsin Law School (UW Law), is a member of the UW Law Review, UW Law Moot Court Board, and serves on the e-board of the Public Interest Law Foundation for the past two years. She has undertaken a passionate  and selfless commitment to public service in her representation of prisoners serving excessive sentences. In pursuit of her passion, Sadie does the heavy lifting that high-quality criminal defense work demands, including combing through piles of medical records, scouring hundreds of pages of prison records and court reporter’s transcripts, examining police reports and attorney files. Prior to attending law school, Sadie was involved with the restorative justice project and worked directly with inmates at a local prison, which involved facilitating talking circles, organizing speakers, and developing community service projects for inmates. Working with vulnerable clients involved in the court system requires the ability to communicate clearly and in a way that anyone can understand (a skill she learned as the live-in caregiver to and teacher of an autistic child the year prior to law school).  During Sadie’s experience with the restorative justice project, she experienced firsthand the personal transformation an offender undergoes when given the resources and opportunity to restore some of the damage for which the offender was responsible. While not entirely sure what she plans to do after law school, Sadie’s experiences before and during law school have made her passionate about helping vulnerable people and she hopes to assist with many more personal transformations in her future professional life.

Abigail L. Leigh (“Abby”) is a second-year law student at the University of California, Irvine School of Law (UCI Law) who is a high-achieving scholar and selflessly dedicates their time, energy, and passion to making the world a better place, both within and outside of the classroom. Abby has served in a variety of leadership positions, including as Associate Editor of UCI Law Review, a board member for the Public Interest Law Fund, both the IL representative and later the Director of Communications for OutLaw, and a Scholar for the Center on Law, Equity, and Race. Abby’s commitment to public service began before attending UCI Law, when they served, among other capacities, as an intern at Chapter Four Uganda, advocating and providing resources for the LGBTQ+ community in Kampala, Uganda.  Over the last two years, Abby has stayed deeply involved with the local legal community and serves as the student liaison to the Orange County Lavender Bar Association. In the context of international human rights law, Abby has been a leading force in the International Justice Clinic. They conducted research into the status of human rights violations in Afghanistan, focusing on marginalized communities, and introduced that work in the context of a major workshop at UCI Law that brought together Afghan refugees working in human rights fields. Working with classmates, the ACLU’s human rights program and a coalition of human rights advocates, they have helped build UCI Law’s program advocating an American National Human Rights Institution. Their work has been consistently excellent, driven by a sense that robust research and creativity can lead to concrete benefits for human rights at home and abroad.   Upon graduation, Abby will use their law degree to positively transform our society and hopes to work as a human rights lawyer, focusing on issues related to international law, migration, the LGBTQ+ community, and racial justice.

Gloria is 3rd in her class of 118 at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.  Before law school she was a social worker, and in law school she put her expertise to work in the Child and Family Law Clinic, where she represents children in juvenile court proceedings and attends Department of Child Safety meetings. She is on the Arizona Law Review and active in the Environmental Law Society and in the Law Women’s Association. She was chosen by three of her first-year professors to serve as a Fellow this year.  Gloria intends to build a career in family and juvenile law and has financial needs in finishing law school. The ACA scholarship will help her achieve her laudable goals.

Morenike Oyebade is the first winner of the Pamela Bresnahan Scholarship, to be awarded to a second-year student at a law school in the District of Columbia area who is a leader in the rights of women. Morenike is at George Washington University Law School. She is an English-born first-generation Nigerian-American who came to law school with a master’s degree in public health from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. While there she conducted research to develop a racism index of structural inequality in laws that predicted disparate health outcomes.  At law school, she is a member of the George Washington Law Review and the incoming Senior Project Manager, the Attorney General for the Student Bar Association, President of the African Law Association, and a Dean’s Fellow, for which she teaches first-year students legal writing.   She has focused on data privacy and technology law out of a passion for the modern way minorities and especially women are harmed online, and hopes to have a career focusing on the needs of minorities in the age of technology. Because of financial issues, the Bresnahan scholarship will assist her in meeting her laudable goals.

A distinguished top student in her class achieving a cumulative grade point average of 3.668 and an overall class rank of 6/82.  She was elected by the student body to serve as IL representative for the Student Bar Association immediately after starting her IL year. At the end of her IL year, Katherine received an honor infrequently bestowed upon rising 2L students at UND Law when she was elected to serve as President of the Student Bar Association for the 2020-2021 academic year. She is an active member of Phi Alpha Delta, where she represented her school at the national Mock Trial Competition and developed her trial skills, preparing her to compete in the Texas Young Lawyers Association National Trial Competition.  Katherine maintained such a high level of academic achievement while balancing her significant involvement and service obligations which speaks directly to her aptitude, work ethic, and desire to succeed.

Alex excelled in the Introduction to Criminal Procedure course and earned one of the top two grades in the class (out of a class of 50 students). In fact, his exam was so outstanding that it was used as the model answer for the entire class. In his first semester at UW Law School (after transferring from the Georgia State University College Law), he already demonstrated remarkable academic aptitude. Alex’s exceptional performance in the Introduction to Criminal Procedure class is a strong sign that he will go on to an outstanding career as a public defender. The depth of his commitment to public interest work after graduation shows his commitment to pursuing a career as a public defender. During his 1L summer, he pursued this goal through an internship at the Federal Defender Program in Atlanta; this summer, he will work at a public defender’s office in New York City.  Alex will go on to an

Laura applied to law school and already had a Ph.D. and a professor job at Trinity College, Dublin, specializing in War Crimes. At Case Western, she was the only first-year student on the school’s International Law Moot Court Team. More remarkably, as a second-year law student, she became the Director of the Yemen Accountability Project, in which she managed a team of 12 students and had a membership of 75 students to investigate atrocities in the civil war in Yemen and draft war crime indictments. She supervised another team of 12 students to prepare a bench memo for the International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition. She also authored an article for the school’s Journal of International Law on starvation crimes in Yemen. Since then she has authored a paper entitled “The Nazi Hunger Plan and Starvation Crimes in International Law.”   By providing this insight into the Nazi’s starvation plan, she is pushing forward with the need to adopt rules concerning starvation as a war crime.

Jenna has a 3.86 GPA, is ranked 8th out of 203 students, and is a member of Tulane Law Review. Jenna is an engaged Tulane Law student with a demonstrated interest in expanding access to justice for clients with disabilities and those experiencing housing discrimination. She has interned at Southeast Louisiana Legal Services and is currently an extern at the Southern Poverty Law Center, has volunteered with the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, and has written a student law review comment on a complex fair housing issue relating to hyper-localism and the use of local government incorporation statutes to perpetuate racial segregation. She was selected after a competitive process to enroll next year as a student attorney in the Civil Rights and Federal Practice Clinic. She plans to pursue a career in public interest and will be applying for post-graduation public interest fellowships.

Emma quickly emerged as a leader among law students at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and works passionately each day to improve our society for future generations. She maintains a stellar academic record and never declines an opportunity to volunteer to support her fellow students or our broader community.  Emma serves as an Articles Editor on the Northwestern University Law Review, is Co-President of Collaboration for Justice, is the Vice President of the Student Funded Public Interest Fellowship organization and is also a leader of one of the School’s newest student organizations, PODER: Petitioners Organizing for DACA’s Effective Replacement. Emma was selected to serve as an Academic and Professional Excellence (Apex) Advisor, Apex Advisors work with the Director of Apex to provide process-oriented support and guidance to first-year students.

Lauren Cole attends Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg, Virginia, works full time, and is a mother of two. Before law school she worked at the Interfaith Outreach Association in Lynchburg directing emergency assistance to low income families in central Virginia for over three years. This experience fostered her interest in attending law school and her desire to offer pro bono legal assistance to low income families once she graduates. She is a member of the Liberty Counsel Student Organization, Black Law Students Association, Federalist Society, Christian Legal Society, and Liberty’s negotiation team which placed in the top 8 at Fordham’s National NBA Negotiation competition this year.

Rachel Scoggins attends Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington, Indiana. There she works at the Center for Law, Society & Justice and the Protective Order Project with the goal of improving access to justice for the general public in Indiana. She serves on the Indiana Law Journal, and this year excelled at the Sherman Minton Moot Court competition, receiving writing honors for her appellant’s brief.  Last summer she interned at the SEC researching federal circuit court splits and international jurisdiction. On top of all of this, she has maintained an exemplary academic record at Maurer and is in the top ten percent of her class.

Erin Varley O’Connor  volunteered at the Legal Intake Clinic at the local homeless shelter; has also worked on case reviews for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project (PIP); assisted an attorney at the Pennsylvania Bar Association with a presentation on Bias in the Legal Profession; and has helped with pro bono research requests from counsel and entities who reach out to the law school.  Erin was awarded a fellowship to work with Mid Penn Legal Services and this summer she will work with the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center (PIRC).

Nolan Downey is active within the DePaul Law community and currently serves as a class senator in the DePaul University Student Bar Association, vice president of the Public Interest Law Association and is a mentor in the Academic Success Program. He has an unwavering commitment to public service.  Nolan currently serves as a law clerk in the Cook County Public Defender’s Office Homicide Taskforce and has also been recognized as a Public Interest Law Honors Scholar at the College of Law.