The Foundation recognizes its top scholars with named scholarships. We sincerely thank the following eleven law firms for their generous contributions to the Diversity Scholarship Program.

Lisa M. Alarcon, UCLA School of Law
Buchalter Nemer Scholar

Coral H. Arias, UC Hastings College of the Law
Fenwick & West LLP Scholar

Amaha Imanuel Kassa, UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall)
Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin Scholar

Juan Leonel Alvarez, UC Hastings College of the Law
Keesal, Young & Logan Scholar

Esmeralda Z. Soria, UC Davis School of Law (King Hall)
Keker & Van Nest LLP Scholar

Amber N. Lee, Pepperdine University School of Law
Lim, Ruger & Kim Foundation Scholar

Angel Rodriguez, Golden Gate University School of Law
The Morrison & Foerster Foundation Scholar

Joshua J. Johnson, UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall)
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe Foundation Scholar

Kenia Acevedo, UCLA School of Law
Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP Scholar

Cristina Pena, USC Gould School of Law
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP Scholar

Sheila Shayda Winslow, UC Hastings College of the Law
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Foundation Scholar

Golden Gate University School of Law
Angel Rodriguez $7500 — The Morrison & Foerster Foundation Scholar
Angel graduated from UC Berkeley after transferring from San Francisco City College. He served as a Youth Commissioner of the City and County of San Francisco and has been active in supporting the interests of Latino, gay, and immigrant youth through his volunteer work at Clinica de La Raza Mental Health and as an East Bay Consortium College Advisor. He became interested in law after being granted political asylum as a homeless gay youth. Angel is seeking a Ph.D. in psychology along with his J.D.

Monterey College of Law
Rafael J. Albarrán $5000
A graduate of California State University, Monterey Bay, Rafael became interested in advocating for agricultural workers after working alongside his parents in the broccoli fields of Salinas. He took a break from college to help support his family by working as a coordinator of the Agricultural Workers’ Access to Healthcare Project at The Watsonville Law Center. In college, he spent a summer as a Law Fellow for UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. He spent another summer as a Civil Rights Summer Fellow at Harvard Law School and the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Pepperdine University School of Law
Amber N. Lee $7500 — Lim, Ruger & Kim Foundation Scholar
Amber graduated from UCLA after transferring from Riverside City College. At 19, she was the youngest woman to be ordained a minister in the American Baptist Church, Pacific Southwest. After overcoming personal adversity as a child, Amber took on the role of supporting her own congregation, where she got the most satisfaction from counseling individuals on a personal level. In addition to working to help support herself during school and being active on her church’s staff, she captained two UCLA Mock Trial teams and received multiple distinctions as a top mock trial attorney.

University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall)
Alexander Hernandez $2500
Alexander is a first-generation immigrant from Columbia who still recalls the fear, in the 1980s, that enveloped family members who remained in Bogota. After his parents divorced while he was in high school, he started working to support himself and his mother. He served with the U.S. Marine Corps, including as a machine gun squad leader during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and his time in the Corps exposed him to injustices around the world. Alexander is a graduate of UC San Diego.

Joshua J. Johnson $7500 — Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe Foundation Scholar

While an undergraduate at Loyola Marymount University, Joshua strove to foster solidarity among diverse groups and to disrupt the cycle of low educational attainment afflicting many people in South Central Los Angeles. He spent a summer as a case manager in a social work internship and participated in two alternative spring breaks in the Dominican Republic working alongside rural coffee farmers. He also mentored expelled high school students of color and volunteered at LGBT Pride Festival events and the OutFest Film Festival. Prior to law school, Joshua applied his fluency in Spanish while working on class action lawsuits as a civil rights fellow in Los Angeles.

Amaha Imanuel Kassa $7500 — Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin Scholar

After having grown up as a refugee, being separated from his mother, and losing his father after a revolution in Ethiopia, Amaha headed to Brown University when he was 16. As a black, gay immigrant, he realizes that others might consider him disadvantaged, but he feels privileged compared to what his life would have been like in Ethiopia and intends to take full advantage of the opportunities before him. He worked as an organizer for labor unions and as an outreach director for the San Francisco Health Authority before serving in a number of capacities at the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, including as executive director for the past three years.

Tam Mai Ma $2500

Tam's interests in policy and justice developed after seeing her mother, a refugee from Vietnam with limited education and language skills, struggle as a low-wage garment factory worker. After graduating from UC Berkeley, Tam spent the past six years as a policy aide to California State Senator Sheila Kuehl. While in college, she served as an AmeriCorps member, running a literacy program for juvenile offenders and coordinating a service-learning curriculum for high school students. She has also served as board president for a domestic violence shelter for Asian and Pacific Islander women and children.

University of California, Davis, School of Law (King Hall)
Anel Carrasco $2500
As a child, Anel grew up moving between Oakland and a small town in Mexico. Having overcome language barriers as a child, she decided to help others by working as a tutor in college for native Spanish speakers and as a peer advisor in the Chicano Studies department. Her experience volunteering at Centro Legal de la Raza, where she assisted low-income workers in Oakland, highlighted to her the language, cultural and immigration barriers facing so many members of her community. She hopes to continue to assist them as a public interest or immigration attorney.

Esmeralda Soria $7500 — Keker & Van Nest LLP Scholar

After graduating from UC Berkeley, Esmeralda worked as a legislative aide for California State Senator Gilbert Cedillo and in the Attorney General's Office. As the daughter of farm workers who spent long days with little compensation harvesting fruit and vegetables in the San Joaquin Valley, Esmeralda became interested in working for greater equality in the community and volunteered with Cal's Raza Recruitment and Retention Center to promote higher education to students of color. She also interned with U.S. Department of Labor and participated in the Goldman School's Public Policy and International Affairs Program.

University of California, Hastings College of the Law
Juan Leonel Alvarez $7500 — Keesal, Young & Logan Scholar
Juan graduated from the University of Southern California after transferring from Long Beach City College. He worked as a field representative for Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas and spent the past year and a half serving in the Office of Legal Counsel of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In college, Juan was active as a policy fellow and intern working on issues affecting Latino communities. Juan’s goals of higher education were inspired by the hard work of his family, particularly his grandfather, with whom he collected bottles and cans every morning, and his father, who worked two jobs to support the family.

Coral H. Arias $7500

While attending Brown University, Coral felt the stigma and stereotypes associated with being a Latina from Boyle Heights in Los Angeles. She has resolved to fight these assumptions by projecting a positive image of herself and her community. At Brown, she worked as a math tutor helping students prepare for the Advanced Placement calculus exam and as a bilingual lecturer for ESL students at NASA's Rhode Island Space Grant Science in Español. Since college, she has worked as an aide to the president and CEO of The East Los Angeles Community Union and as a paralegal at the Inner City Law Center.

Houng Claire Mao $2500

Claire came to the United States after fleeing war-torn Cambodia and spending the first five years of her life in a refugee camp in Thailand. Her parents worked in sweatshops, and she in turn worked hard to get an education, graduating as a double major and then obtaining a master’s degree from UC Irvine. Claire has given back to her community by providing volunteer income tax assistance, mentoring high school students, and providing respite care to an autistic teenager. She was inspired to pursue a legal career after visiting Cambodia and realizing the importance of the rule of law in ensuring opportunities for its citizens.

Jimmy E. Rodriguez $5000

$5,000 A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UC Irvine, Jimmy defied the odds and became the first person in his family to graduate from high school. Growing up in Santa Ana, he experienced and witnessed violence and saw poverty all around him. While in college, he worked as an investigative intern and then a juvenile interviewer volunteer for the Orange County Public Defender's Office. Jimmy hopes to work as a public defender with the knowledge that had he not escaped the gang activity, violence, and poverty of his upbringing, he could easily have been the one in need of a public defender.

Sheila Shayda Winslow $7500 — Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Foundation Scholar

Sheila is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. As one of a handful of African American students at her high school and college, Sheila struggled with feelings of alienation and financial adversity. These challenges inspired her to pursue a legal career and give back to her community. In college, she produced African dance ensemble performances, interned at Homebase, and conducted legal research at the Cuban Center for Development and Population in Havana. After college, she interned with the San Francisco Public Defender's Office.

University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law
Kenia Acevedo $7500 — Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP Scholar
Kenia graduated from UCLA. Having come from a working-class family that emigrated from Central America when she was four, she sees the community around her struggling with the issues her own family tackled. In college, she sought to help ameliorate those struggles as a math tutor for inner-city youth, a counselor and advisor for underprivileged children at UniCamp, a volunteer at a legal clinic for homeless teens, and an intern mentoring low-income and at-risk youth. For a year after graduating from college, Kenia worked as an immigration law clerk.

Lisa M. Alarcón $7500 — Buchalter Nemer Scholar

After graduating from Stanford University, Lisa investigated housing discrimination cases for a nonprofit organization and supported attorneys practicing mental health law as a legal assistant. She spent two years assisting State Senator Alex Padilla, first as a California Senate Fellow and then as a legislative consultant. While in Sacramento, Lisa was a volunteer leader with the Chicano Youth Leadership Project. After law school, Lisa hopes to combine her interests in health care and advocacy by pursuing a public interest career in health law.

Robert Montaño $2500

The son of Mexican immigrants who came to California with little education but a willingness to do physical, low-paying work as migrant workers, Robert grew up surrounded by gangs and poverty. Rather than heading to college after high school, Robert worked as a plumber and shipfitter for nine years. He redirected his strong work ethic towards his education after enrolling at Southwestern College. Robert ultimately graduated from San Diego State University and for the last three years worked as a computer lab technician at Southwestern. Robert hopes to continue serving the community as a lawyer.

University of San Francisco School of Law
Carmen L. Franklin $2500
While a student at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Carmen worked at the Center for Community Service Learning, creating opportunities for student leaders to serve in their community. She also distinguished herself as a two-time All-American track and field athlete. After college, she spent three years in JusticeCorps, an AmeriCorps program that provides legal information to self-represented litigants, and worked as a consultant for the court, receiving the volunteer of the year award from the Superior Court of Los Angeles. Carmen also served as a Judicial Administration Fellow for the Alameda County Superior Court.

University of Southern California Gould School of Law
Cristina Peña $7500 — Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP Scholar
While at UC Berkeley, Cristina tutored third-grade students from disadvantaged areas, provided volunteer interpretation services for family law cases, interned at the Superior Court of Alameda County providing pretrial services for recently arrested defendants, and worked as a research assistant and a financial aid advisor. After her family moved from a village in Mexico to California’s farmlands, Cristina was the voice for her exclusively Spanish-speaking parents when interacting with the broader community, an experience that led her to realize the power of language as a bridge of access.

Marwa Mohamed Rifahie $2500

Marwa graduated from UC Davis. After receiving threats at her Bay Area high school after 9/11, Marwa spent her last year of high school living with a relative in Oregon. She worked with the Applied Research Center, where she documented civil rights violations and reviewed the impact of legislation that arose after 9/11. While in college, Marwa campaigned for the creation of a Middle East/South East Asia Studies Department, helped organize Black Family Week, and was involved with the Muslim Student Association, the Pan-African Student Organization, and various alternative student publications.