News

Benjamin Cooper, a current 3L at Minnesota Law, has always had a deep interest in legal policy and its impact on communities. 

After graduating from St. Olaf College, Cooper moved to Minneapolis and began work as a Legal Services Coordinator at Tubman, a nonprofit organization that helps people who have experienced relationship violence, elder abuse, addiction, sexual exploitation or other forms of trauma.  

Thanks to a generous gift from Medtronic, Minnesota Law has created two new scholarships named after trailblazing alumni. The Judge Pamela G. Alexander ’77 Scholarship and Judge Michael J. Davis ’72 Scholarship were established to support law students who show a commitment to social justice and exhibit outstanding potential for legal work as civil rights or public interest attorneys.

The Law School’s Driven to Lead campaign has not only surpassed its original $80 million fundraising goal, but exceeded its $100 million stretch goal, raising more than $100 million in total for scholarships, professorships and faculty research, student support and fellowships, clinical programs and experiential learning, leadership programming, and the annual fund.

The Law School has named incoming 1L Brandon Redmon as the first recipient of the George Floyd Memorial Scholarship in Law.

The scholarship was set up by the Law School with the generous support and leadership of Catlan McCurdy '11 and Sanjiv Laud '12 as well as hundreds of other contributors.

Three Minnesota Law students among the 81 recipients of 2021 fellowships nationwide from the John Paul Stevens Fellowships Foundation.

The prestigious Stevens fellowships were awarded to rising 3Ls Wendy Jacqueline Escobar, Haille Laws, and Emily Newman. 

The Stevens fellowship provides grants to enable law students at participating law schools to work in otherwise unpaid public interest summer law positions.

Rising 3L Zoe Psiakis was selected by Equal Justice Works for a highly competitive 2021 Rural Summer Legal Corps Fellowship. She is one of 35 law students nationally (out of 460 applicants) to be named a fellow.

Erin Abramovitz, a current 3L student at Minnesota Law, has always had a passion for helping people, especially empowering marginalized individuals and families. After working in social work for almost five years as a case manager for foster care families, Abramovitz had seen the powerful impact lawyers made in the lives of the kids whose cases she had worked on—for better or worse. She witnessed firsthand the areas of the legal system that are lacking and felt limited in the ways she could make a difference through social work.

AccessLex has awarded a $5,000 scholarship to Frances Daniels, 2L.

AccessLex is a nonprofit organization that seeks to further access, affordability, and the value of legal education through research, policy, advocacy, and direct member and student educational services.

Daniels, a frequent user of its resources, learned of her scholarship on Friday during a video conference call with AccessLex representatives and Assistant Dean of Students Erin Keyes ’00. (See video clip below.)

Current 3L student Camila Pacheco-Forés came to Minnesota Law with an impressive resume including hands-on experience in migrant rights, immigration, and family law. She has completed a Fulbright fellowship in Mexico City and worked as a paralegal for a legal aid organization in Los Angeles. Her time at Minnesota Law has strengthened her desire to use her education to make a difference for underserved communities after graduation. Pacheco-Forés cites the scholarships she received as instrumental to pursuing a career based on passion instead of paycheck.

The Law School has received a $2.3M gift from the Robina Foundation to endow a Dean’s Innovation Fund to support creative, impactful programs, projects, and initiatives.