Profiles of the
2006 Winners of the
WLAM Foundation
Outstanding Woman Law Student Award
Rachel Andersen-Watts, WLAM Foundation Scholar, University of Michigan Law School.
| Rachel’s dedication to the rights and welfare of women is evident from her academic background, volunteer activities and legal aid work. A Women’s Studies major as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, she volunteered as a literacy tutor in a program outside of Seville, Spain and also for the Battered Women’s Clemency Project during their summer campaigns in 2004 and 2005. As a law student, Rachael co-founded a chapter of Law Students for Choice as a 1L at Wayne State University Law School. Subsequently, she began work at the Family Law Project, a legal aid clinic serving survivors of domestic violence, where she remains employed as a project coordinator for FLP’s personal protection order volunteer clinic. |
Shanta Anderson-Williams, WLAM Foundation Scholar, Wayne State University Law School.
| At Wayne, Shanta serves as the Sports & Entertainment Law Society President, Student Board of Governors Member, and Executive Board Member of the Black Law Students Association. She is also a member of the law school's Student Trial Advocacy Program, in which she won the fall local competition and represented the school in national competitions. She has additionally served as a mentor to at-risk youth through Detroit's VIP Mentoring Program. With her interests in sports and entertainment law, Shanta plans to achieve a career in this practice area where women are underrepresented, and will clerk at the National Football League's General Counsel's office in New York. Shanta will graduate in May, 2007. |
Tanisha Davis-Perez, Howard & Howard Scholar, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
| Tanisha is a second-year law student whose commitment to the legal profession is demonstrated by the amount of time and dedication she gives to law school despite her full load. Currently a full-time employee of UAW-DaimlerChrysler National Training Center, she is a senior staff writer for the company’s Tomorrow magazine, and editor-in-chief of its Retiree Newsletter. Active in the legal community, Tanisha recently clerked for the Honorable Judge Gerald Rosen at the United States Court, Eastern District of Michigan, while simultaneously working in the Office of General Counsel for DaimlerChrysler Services. |
LeeAnn Ford, Ford Motor Company Fund Scholar, Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
| LeeAnn achieved academic honors at Cooley while working full-time as an engineer at Johnson Controls, Inc. A founding board member and President of the Federalist Society Chapter, she also serves as Vice President of the International Law Society and as a school Ambassador mentoring incoming students. In an effort to build positive relations between the community and students entering the legal profession, LeeAnn functions as her school's founding Habitat for Humanity Service Coordinator, organizing student volunteers to build homes for low-income families in Grand Rapids. She plans on a lifetime of community involvement and will graduate in May of 2007. |
Laura Garneau, General Motors Scholar, Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
| Laura enrolled at Thomas M. Cooley Law School after graduating with high honors from Michigan State University with a degree in Spanish. She is an advocate for the rights of elderly women through her work at the Sixty Plus Elderlaw Clinic at Cooley, and through the Women's Law Alliance she participates in numerous projects with mothers and their children at a local domestic violence shelter. Laura serves as Vice-President of the Women's Law Alliance, a member of the Grade Appeals Board, and also participates in the Moot Court Board. She has been on the Dean's List for two years and will graduate in January. |
Nadine Gartner, WLAM Foundation Scholar, University of Michigan Law School.
| After graduating magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College, where she assisted immigrants and survivors of domestic violence, Nadine worked in New York City and volunteered for women's rights groups. While in law school, and as a Dean's Fellow and Bergstrom Child Welfare Law Fellow, Nadine has clerked for the Family Law Project, the Michigan Child Advocacy Clinic, Lawyers for Children, and the National Center for Youth Law. She also served as the Student Note Coordinator of the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law and taught a women's studies course at the undergraduate university. Following a judicial clerkship next year, she intends to continue advancing the position of women in society by pursuing a career in public interest law. |
Anne Gordon, Ford Motor Company Fund Scholar, University of Michigan Law School.
| Anne discovered her passion for social justice working on the West Side of Chicago after she graduated from Princeton, as well as in refugee camps in Ethiopia and remote villages in Cambodia. At the law school, Anne is an Associate Editor of the Michigan Journal of International Law, a finalist for the Campbell Moot Court, Co-Chair of the Law School ACLU, a Contributing Editor on the Law School’s newspaper, and an active member of Outlaws, the Law School’s LGBT student group. She hopes to pursue civil rights litigation when she graduates next December, and has already gotten her feet wet with the General Litigation Clinic at the law school, where she represents low-income clients in criminal, landlord-tenant, and constitutional rights cases. She will spend next summer working at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. |
Melodee Henderson, General Motors Scholar, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
| Melodee Henderson has made a commitment to increasing diversity in the legal profession. As an Executive Board Member of the Black Law Students Association, she is involved in planning and fundraising for scholarships to help defray rising tuition costs for incoming minority students. She was a semi-finalist in the 2004 G. Mennen Williams Moot Court Competition, served as an intern for the Honorable Arthur Tarnow at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, and is a member of UDM’s Law Review. |
Jenny Jeltes, Ford Motor Company Fund Scholar, Wayne State University Law School.
| Hailing from Zeeland, Michigan, Jenny graduated from the University of Michigan with Distinction prior to attending law school. She was an active member of the Moot Court program, receiving awards at the State of Michigan Moot Court Competition and the National Sexual Orientation Moot Court Competition at UCLA. Ms. Jeltes interned for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office in the Child and Family Abuse Unit, interned for Judge Gerald R. Rosen in the Eastern District of Michigan, and was recognized by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan for her pro bono contributions through the Wayne Civil Rights Litigation Clinic. She currently works as a law clerk for the Birmingham, Michigan law firm of Bator Berlin, P.C. |
Keela Johnson, WLAM Foundation Scholar at Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
| Prior to attending law school, Keela obtained her masters degree in guidance and counseling with an emphasis in mental health care and worked with juveniles and on sexual assault/domestic violence advocacy. Since attending law school, she has excelled academically and earned the certificate of merit in Criminal Law while representing her class as a senator on the Student Bar Association, participating in the mock trial and moot court competitions, acting as the campus liaison for the Moot Court Board and mentoring first term law students through the Student Ambassador program. She plans to continue working to end violence against women through a career as a prosecutor. |
Allison Kent, General Motors Scholar, University of Michigan Law School.
| Prior to Harvard College, Allison’s year of community service with City Year Boston solidified her passion for grassroots social justice. She's since taken that passion to Bolivia as a Fulbright Scholar and then public health worker with marginalized Afro-Latino and indigenous communities, and to Guatemala and Mexico partnering with human, indigenous, and women's rights organizations. Most recently, Allison worked in rural Sierra Leone with Timap ("Stand Up") for Justice, a grassroots legal justice organization of community-based paralegals. At UM Law, among other activities, Allison is co-President of the International Law Society, an Associate Editor of the Michigan Journal of International Law, and was awarded a Michigan Fellowship in Refugee and Asylum Law for summer 2006. |
Diana Langdon, WLAM Foundation Scholar at Michigan State University College of Law.
| Diana was raised in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where her mother's work as a counselor at one of Michigan's first battered womens' shelters exposed her to the plight of rural women and children experiencing domestic violence. As a single, working mother, Ms. Langdon finished her under-graduate studies summa cum laude and went on to help domestic violence survivors and their children as a volunteer and staff member at the shelter in Calumet, where she assisted resident and non-resident clients, staffed the crisis line, facilitated children's groups, and developed community awareness programs for youth and adults. Diana is a member of the Women's Law Caucus and Journal of International Law and ranks in the top tenth of her cohort; upon graduation in 2007, she will continue and expand her advocacy for rural survivors of domestic violence and their children. |
Hayley Rohn, WLAM Foundaton Scholar, Wayne State University Law School.
| Deaf since birth, Hayley has set an example for her peers in law school through her involvement with the Women's Law Caucus, Disability Law Clinic, and in the classroom. In the Disability Law Clinic, she has helped adults and children with severe disabilities obtain benefits from the Social Security Administration. Hayley also volunteers at a non-profit organization for deaf persons in Oakland County. In January 2006, Hayley received a cochlear implant which will improve her hearing and further her capabilities. After graduating in May 2007, she plans to pursue a career in the government sector, or in the private sector with a focus on employment, disability and real estate law. |
Raquel Salas, Ford Motor Fund Scholar, Michigan State University College of Law.
| Raquel graduated Summa Cum Laude and was awarded the Honor Gold Medal for completing her bachelor degree with a 4.0 G.P.A. at Universidad del Este in Puerto Rico. A native Spanish speaker, Ms. Salas immigrated to the United States in 2002 and took the challenge of attending law school in Michigan. Even though law school was her first time taking classes in English, she received the Book Award in both her Criminal Law and Contracts II classes. As a transfer student at Michigan State College of Law, Ms. Salas is a founding member and president of the Hispanic Law Society, Member of the America Inns of Court, Junior Associate for the Journal of International Law and an honor student in the King Scholar Program. She is committed to service and justice through her work at the Ingham County Prosecuting Office, and plans to pursue a career as a litigator and a professor of law following her graduation in December. |
Ann Marie Schultz, General Motors Scholar, Michigan State University College of Law.
| After a protracted struggle with depression and anxiety, Ann Marie decided to become an attorney and to use her law school experience to give voice to the concerns of the mentally ill. As co-founder and president of the Society for Mental Health Law, she spearheaded several projects, including the first ever MSU Law National Depression Screening Day, the launching of a website allowing unlimited access to mental health screenings, and the distribution of information regarding Psychiatric Advanced Directives to health rally participants. Ann Marie also currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the MSU Journal of Medicine and Law, and is drafting a “Psychiatric Outpatient Consumer’s Bill of Rights” to help clarify and explain the rights of psychiatric outpatients. She will graduate this May. |
Elizabeth Stomski, WLAM Foundation Scholar, Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
| Since her enrollment at Cooley Law School, Elizabeth has worked to improve the community around her by interning with the Ingham County Prosecutor's Domestic Violence Unit, where she counseled abused women and helped them through the court process. She is also the current President of Cooley's Women's Law Alliance; during her presidency, the organization raised almost $2000 for the American Cancer Society's Breast Cancer Campaign, has mentored children at a Lansing domestic violence shelter, organized career advancement seminars, and participated in the Salvation Army's Adopt-A-Family campaign. Elizabeth will graduate this May in the top 50% of her class with plans to work in the field of Family Law. |
Belle Van, WLAM Foundation Scholar, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
| As the youngest of nine children, Belle has always looked towards her parents as the source of her inspiration. Since coming to law school, she has received the Roberts Employment Law Award, the J.D./LL.B. Award of Excellence, University of Detroit Mercy Book Award for Professional Responsibility, and had ended her second year of law school at the top of her class. Belle has been a mentor to elementary school children, counsellor at the University of Toronto's Sex Education and Peer Counseling Centre, and has acted in an executive position in numerous committees and clubs. She will be graduating this May. |
Maya K. Watson, General Motors Scholar, Wayne State University Law School.
| Maya has distinguished herself in a number of ways as a leader within the City of Detroit community. She is one of the founders of the Detroit City Council's Task Force named "Young Adults Re-Claiming Detroit" (YARD), and the national awardee of the National Council of Negro Women's Student Leader of the Year. She has been an activist with the Michigan NAACP, and is a founding member of Women Empowered. Maya is a leader within Wayne’s Black Law Students Association, is an elected member of the Wayne State University Student Board of Governors, and she serves on the Moot Court Outside Competition Team. |
Aminie Woolworth, Ford Motor Company Fund Scholar, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
| Graduating this May, Aminie serves as a Title Editor of the Law Review, Executive Editor of the school newspaper, and Secretary and Treasurer of the Third Year Class. Accredited with several academic awards and publications, she is also a member of the Moot Court Board of Advocates and the American Inns of Court Program. The oldest of four siblings from a small town in Western Michigan, Aminie works numerous jobs in order to put herself through law school, has clerked for Judge Vera Massey Jones, and earned a summer fellowship at the State Appellate Defender Office. Aminie credits her amazing parents in giving her the compassion to help improve the lives of others, and to stay true to her belief that people come before money, time-lines and victories. |
Lena Zwarensteyn, WLAM Foundation Scholar, Michigan State University College of Law.
| Lena grew up in Grand Rapids knowing she wanted to attend law school and wanting to gain life experiences that could compliment her passion to work for social justice. She attended Wellesley College, where she wrote an honors thesis on traditional gender roles and domestic violence in Japan. She then spent three years working on federal legislative and regulatory issues at Planned Parenthood Federation of America in Washington, D.C. Since attending MSU College of Law, Lena, now a 2L, founded and chairs the school's chapter of the American Constitution Society, sits on the Moot Court Executive Board, participates in the school's Trial Practice Institute, and interned at the Michigan Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. |
