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| Support for WLAM | Support for Other Women's Groups and Projects |
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Money raised by the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan Foundation supports several educational projects: scholarships for women law students, special projects of the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan, and special projects of other women's groups.
In 2007, the Foundation awarded over $50,000 to a total of 19 law students.
Amanda Dallo, WLAM Foundation Scholar, University of Michigan Law School.
| While pursuing an undergraduate degree at the George Washington University, Amanda worked at a non-profit literacy organization aimed at providing resources to D.C. Public Schools. At the University of Michigan Law School, she has continued her work on behalf of women and children by participating in the Child Advocacy Law Clinic and the Pediatric Advocacy Initiative, where she has represented children who have been abused or neglected, women who have been victims of domestic violence, and families seeking government benefits. Following her graduation in May, Amanda will be clerking for Judge Stephen Glickman on the D.C. Court of Appeals. |
Kristal Dickow, General Motors Scholar, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
| Krystal graduated with a Political Science Degree from the University of Michigan, where she co-founded the first Chaldean American Student Association and was elected President for two consecutive years, playing an active role promoting and encouraging higher education for Chaldean and ethnic women. She continues her work at UDM Law School as an active member of the Arab & Chaldean Law Student Association. In addition, she is a member of the Law Review and the Moot Court Board of Advocate's National Team, competing this year at the Tulane Sports Law Invitational. She plans to spend this summer with Secrest Wardle, in Farmington Hills, Michigan. |
Kerry Fritz, Ford Motor Company Fund Scholar, Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
| At Cooley, Kerry was elected as class representative and was given the honor of becoming the SBA Volunteer Committee Chair. Her intense drive to serve the community is evident from her many volunteer projects, including the YWCA Domestic Violence Shelter, the Grand Rapids Hispanic Center, and the United Way. Kerry organized the first blood drive for the Grand Rapids campus and helped sponsor a toiletries drive for a Cooley student and his soldiers serving in Iraq. She is also vice-president and a founding member of the Grand Rapids chapter of the Christian Legal Society, and has received the Certificate of Merit in Research and Writing. |
Jennifer Hill, General Motors Scholar, University of Michigan Law School.
| Jennifer is a longtime workers' rights activist who spent more than a decade as a union organizer, working mostly with nursing home and hospital workers in the South. She is a co-founder of STITCH, a labor solidarity network supporting women in Central America as they try to form and strengthen unions. During law school, Jennifer helped found the Washtenaw County Workers' Center, started the Labor Law Roundtable, interned with Southern Migrant Legal Services, and interned with the American Center for International Labor Solidarity in Mexico. Jennifer was awarded a Skadden Fellowship and will work with the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center to provide representation to low-wage service workers after graduating in May. |
Karissa Holmes, Ford Motor Company Fund Scholar, Wayne State University Law School.
| Karissa serves as a member of Students Helping Students Read, Student Board of Governors and an Executive Member of the Black Law Students Association, and has contributed her time to various volunteer organizations and events, including Comcast Cares Day and the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. She spent last summer as a summer associate at Honigman, and is eager to join the firm again in May. Currently, she participates in Wayne's Small Business and Non-Profit Clinic where she is providing much needed services and advice to organizations that will contribute to a Detroit Renaissance. |
Kathleen Suzette Hudon, WLAM Foundation Scholar, Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
| Katie’s educational accomplishments include two B.A.s (History and International Studies), an M.A. (Communication Arts), and an Ed.S. (Curriculum and Instruction), all with top honor distinctions. At Cooley Law School, she has been involved in twenty-four legal organizations, and has found distinction in her academic endeavors, obtaining certificates of merit for three subject areas, receiving the Campus Academic Committee Scholarship, entering Cooley as an Honors Scholar, and serving as a legal intern for the Michigan House of Representatives. Katie is currently contemplating the pursuit of an LLM in Europe, and plans on a lifetime of community involvement. |
Andrea Kosmack, WLAM Foundation Scholar, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
| Andrea is currently in her second year in a unique and challenging joint degree program, working towards her JD as well as a Canadian LLB degree from the University of Windsor. She is an active member of Phi Alpha Delta, and is Vice President of the College Democrats chapter at the University of Detroit Mercy. Andrea has made a commitment to advocacy for at-risk families through her previous involvement at the University of Michigan with the Prisoner’s Creative Arts Project, where she worked with incarcerated youth, and as an intern at the Juvenile Court. Her work has inspired her to focus her studies on alternative dispute resolution, which she hopes to use as a means of helping families obtain more affordable legal services. |
Susan Lumetta, WLAM Foundation Scholar, Michigan State University College of Law.
| Susan graduated summa cum laude from Oakland University, where she wrote on gender and cultural studies topics and volunteered at the Women’s Survival Center in Oakland County, Michigan. While at law school, she has extended herself beyond the classroom setting, including as a competitor for MSU College of Law’s Moot Court and Advocacy Board, which has provided a class Best Brief award, and as competitor in a National Championship at New York Law School’s Labor and Employment moot court competition. She is involved in her school’s Journal of Business and Securities Law; and enjoyed a judicial internship with Justice Marilyn Kelly of the Michigan Supreme Court. |
Lauren M. Miszcak, General Motors Scholar, Michigan State University College of Law.
| Graduating this May, Lauren serves as an Associate Editor of the Law Review, a member of the Michigan State Trial Practice Institute, and a member of the criminal law concentration. In addition to her studies at MSU-LAW throughout the last three years, she has worked at the Washtenaw County Public Defender’s Office, the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office, the Livingston County Prosecutor’s Office, and has volunteered with a non-profit organization called Girls on the Run. |
Meredith Mullins, Ford Motor Company Fund Scholar, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
| Meredith is a third-year evening law student who works at Karmanos Cancer Institute as senior vice president for Research and Government Affairs. Her dedication to health and biomedical research concerns has resulted in millions of dollars in federal funding for cancer research, minority umbilical cord blood banks, improved access to clinical trials for women and minorities, and assessing the potential health impact of exposure to asbestos-containing compounds once manufactured in Michigan-based plants. Her recent public policy efforts have focused on removing the ban on embryonic stem cell research and working with Michigan’s U.S. Senators to improve federal Medicaid reimbursement for cancer care. While in law school, Meredith has served on the Dean’s Tutorial Society and the American Indian Law Committee. |
Sabrina Ong, Ford Motor Company Fund Scholar, Michigan State University College of Law.
| Always passionate about helping those around her, Sabrina interned with Farmworker Legal Services where she organized two Naturalization Clinics in west Michigan to help low-income permanent residents become U.S. citizens, and visited migrant camps to inform farmworkers of their legal rights. She also represented and counseled refugees and asylees in the area of family-based immigration law with Immigration Legal Services in Lansing. Currently, Sabrina is on the staff of the Michigan State Law Review and is interning with the Consumer Protection Division of Michigan’s Office of the Attorney General. |
Lisa J. Peterson, WLAM Foundation Scholar, Michigan State University College of Law.
| After receiving an undergrad degree in Information Systems, Lisa moved from her hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas to Washington D.C. where she worked as a software consultant and quickly became an activist for the LGBT community by raising money, stuffing envelopes, marching in parades and even running a marathon. In addition to being a Moot Court Trial Team member, Gender Law Journal editor, President of Triangle Bar, and organizing several speaker panels to discuss current topics such as the anti-gay marriage amendment to the Michigan Constitution, and adoption rights of same-sex couples, Lisa is a point person for law school deans and administrators when it comes to diversity issues. |
Katherine O. Razdolsky, WLAM Foundation Scholar, Wayne State University Law School.
| Katherine is a third year student at Wayne State University Law School. She received her undergraduate degree in Economics and minor in Spanish from the University of Michigan. At Wayne, Katherine is President of the American Constitution Society’s student chapter and serves as Director of Oral Advocacy for the school’s moot court program. While in law school, Katherine interned for the Honorable Judge Julian A. Cook of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan. She currently interns for Justice Marilyn Kelly of the Michigan Supreme Court and provides legal assistance to low-income individuals through Wayne State’s Non-profit Organizations and Small Business Enterprises Clinic. |
Darlene Rogers, General Motors Scholar, Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
| Darlene’s first major job was with GM in Cincinnati, more than twenty years ago, where she was hired into the skilled trades as a Tool and Die Apprentice. She sold her successful business there recently to attend Cooley, where she is active in the Human Rights Campaign, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Gay Rights Alliance. Darlene is an active volunteer with the Triangle Foundation, and she hopes to make a positive difference in the lives of the people around her, particularly in the gay and lesbian community. She plans a lifetime of community involvement and will graduate in January of 2008. |
Jill Russell, WLAM Foundation Scholar, University of Michigan Law School.
| Jill is active in the University of Michigan community and has been involved with the executive boards of the Women's Law Students Association and the Organization of Public Interest Students, as well as serving as a student volunteer for the admissions office. Jill is passionate about advancing women in the legal profession and has put that passion to work as a founding member and secretary of the Board of Directors for Ms. JD (www.ms-jd.org), a blog that aims to connect women across facets of the legal profession. Jill hopes to pursue a career in criminal law: she spent last summer working with the Juvenile Justice Division of the State's Attorney's Office in Chicago and participated in the Criminal Appellate Clinic this fall. |
Courtney A. Shipp, WLAM Foundation Scholar, Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
| Prior to enrollment at Cooley Law School, the North Carolina native helped others achieve their dreams of financial independence by holding seminars on homeownership, budgeting, and retirement planning. In addition, she conducted life skills workshops for victims of domestic violence. As a first-year law student at Cooley, she has been instrumental in establishing Cooley’s Oakland Chapter of the Black Law Students Association and currently serves as the Treasurer. Courtney still maintains her small business consulting firm established in 2002 and upon graduating plans to focus on estate planning law and the financial empowerment of women. |
Tisha Simmons, WLAM Foundation Scholar, Wayne State University Law School.
| While earning her undergraduate degree in journalism from Clark Atlanta University, Tisha completed an environmental Americorps program. As a Lombard Fellow at Wayne, Tisha won the faculty award for Contracts and the Fall 2006 Donald E. Barris Trial Competition, which gave her the opportunity to represent the school in national trial advocacy competitions. Tisha participates in numerous organizations including the Black Law Student’s Association, Women’s Law Caucus, and the student chapter of the Federal Bar Association Eastern District of Michigan, of which she is a founding member of. Upon graduating in May 2008, she hopes to pursue a career in litigation. |
Breanne Smith, WLAM Foundation Scholar, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
| Breanne received a Bachelor Degree in English Writing at the University of Pittsburgh before entering UDM, where she holds officer positions in a number of student organizations, and serves as the Executive Director and member of the McGee Civil Rights national competition team for the Moot Court Board of Advocates. She has clerked for the Honorable Jeanette O’Banner-Owens at the 36th District Court in Detroit, interned at both the Wayne and St. Clair County Prosecutors’ Offices, represented a client for the State Appellate Defender Office, and taught an introductory law course at a local Detroit high school. Breanne will graduate in May in the top one-third of her class. |
Maggie Smith, General Motors Scholar, Wayne State University Law School.
| At WSU Law, Maggie serves as the Vice President of the Student Board of Governors, trying to challenge the idea that students, faculty, and administration are too diverse to effectively work together toward common goals. As the President of the Public Interest Law Association, she and the group are working to institutionalize support for public interest students by coordinating with the Career Service Office to host a Public Interest Career Fair this winter, and building a coalition of other public interest groups in the school. In her position as the chairperson of the Loan Repayment Assistance Program Committee, she and her fellow students have been making great strides in creating a successful loan forgiveness program at WSU Law. |
The Foundation is proud to provide profiles of the Outstanding Women Law Students for the following years:
| Panel of women lawyers at a law school reception for students. Receptions are hosted by the Foundation and WLAM throughout the year. |  |
