Originally published in Student Lawyer magazine, February 2006 (Vol. 34, No. 6). All rights reserved.

SPOTLIGHT

ABA Scholarship Helps Student Serve Native American Community

by Karen Taylor

Jaclyn Johnson grew up on the Flathead Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana. Though she was raised on the reservation, she felt sheltered from many of the problems facing Native Americans. That all changed when she returned home after her first year of college to work as a counselor at a math and science camp for Native American junior high school students.

“We learned and played during the day and had long conversations at night,” says Johnson, a first-year student at the University of Michigan Law School. “I heard girls talk about how they missed their cigarettes and alcohol. One youngster was caught with marijuana and another threatened to commit suicide. I realized that these were not just isolated incidents— they were concerns that my campers faced every day.”

Johnson was one of 20 first-year law students this year to be awarded a scholarship from the ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarship Fund. She hopes to use her legal education to learn more about Native American issues and improve her community.

The fund, which was started in 2000, awards each student a scholarship of $5,000 a year for each year in law school. Recipients are chosen based on whether they are a member of an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority, financial need, personal and family background, and participation in community service activities.

The scholarship was founded on the premise that society’s diversity efforts cannot be truly successful as long as too few people of color enter the legal profession. Though many projections predict that the United States will be 30 percent nonwhite by the year 2010, only 9.7 percent of all lawyers are nonwhite.

For Johnson, the scholarship eased some of the financial burdens of attending law school. She hopes this will allow her more freedom to pursue her passion for Native American law.

“The ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarship has lessened the stress and worries over my financial matters by lessening the amount of loans,” she says. “It is comforting to know that after graduating from law school, I will be more able to choose the career path I want, without placing as much value on what the salary will be.”

According to Johnson, many of the young people on the reservation are lacking positive role models and adequate education. During the summer, she worked hard to teach her campers the value of setting goals and achieving them.

“I wanted to show them the great aspects of our reservation and that there is something more out there besides the bleak situations they face every day,” she says.

Johnson is a member of the Native American Law Students Association and is helping to plan her chapter’s annual Indian Law Day. She hopes to find work this summer in the field and eventually wants to return to Montana to use her degree.

“A law degree can be such a powerful tool to generate the change that is needed in my community and in all Native communities,” she says.

For more information on the ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarship Fund, visit www.abanet.org/op/legal.html.

Do you know a distinguished law student (continuing for 2006-07) who would make an interesting subject for Spotlight? Please e-mail suggestions along with your name, address, and daytime/evening phone numbers to studentlawyer@abanet.org (subject line: Spotlight).

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