Q&A with Anthony Solana

For the past seven years, the ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarship program has played a significant part in helping diverse students realize their dreams of attending law school. Over this span of time, the ABA has committed $2,100,000 to law students of color through members' generous contributions to the Fund for Justice and Education earmarked for the program.

Since the spring of 2000, the ABA has awarded 20 scholarships each year. Nearly 80 recipients have already completed law school, passed the bar, and are practicing young lawyers primed to become leaders in the profession.

Of this year's applicant pool of nearly 1,100, 47 percent were African American, 23 percent were Hispanic, 22 percent were Asian, and 3 percent were Native American; 4 percent self-identified as "other." The gender split was 67 percent female, 33 percent male. The list of this year's scholarship winners will be finalized by July 1.

Lawyers interested in becoming involved in this effort are encouraged to do so through the ABA Fund for Justice in Education.

Your ABA spoke with Anthony Solana, one of the first scholarship recipients who is now a second-year associate at Morrison & Foerster, about what the scholarship, and being a lawyer, has meant to him.

Tell me, briefly, a little about your life growing up.

Anthony Solana

I am a proud son of immigrants who came to this country. My mother is from Managua, Nicaragua, and my dad was from Mexico. They met in the States.

I grew up in not the best circumstances, financially. We were pretty poor, despite my parents' diligent efforts to support the family. We were definitely not affluent at all. My dad was an entrepreneur, and sometimes his businesses did well, and sometimes they didn't. Mostly they didn't. My mother got her license to be a cosmetologist so she did that for a long time, working as a hairdresser.

My parents divorced early, when I was about five years old. And when I was about 10, my mom got sick and passed and I went to live with my dad. I was essentially raised by my grandmother, who was a strong, determined woman who was a housecleaner, a domestic servant, for most of her life. She was the primary figurehead in my life.

It was a very strong family unit, but we had to work hard to make ends meet.

What made you want to go to law school? Was your grandmother a determining factor in your decision?

Absolutely. My grandmother and my father as well.

Early on, even in elementary school, I did fairly well in school despite the circumstances. And ever since high school, I wanted to go to law school. I believe where it came from was that I wanted to empower myself and my family.

When you grow up poor, sometimes you get evicted from housing, people take advantage of you, because you don't know your rights. Some decisions seem very arbitrary. Now, I look back and know that, "I could have done this," or "I could have done that."

I always felt I had to arm myself with a certain base of knowledge. And I knew that the law or legal profession was something that would help me out personally and assist my family. And that is basically what has happened. And as a direct result of the scholarship, I was able to go to law school and gain that knowledge.

I'm the oldest in the family, the first one to go to school and graduate.

How did you learn about the scholarship opportunity?

I believe I received an email or a mailing, and – in 2000 – so I received one of the first scholarships that were given.

As soon as I received the email, I was very excited about it. Throughout my undergraduate years at Berkeley – my father passed away my first year – I was 18 and had assumed responsibility for my entire family economically. I moved my grandmother to Berkeley with me; I also have three younger brothers. So I was working 40, 60 hours a week during the first three years I was in school. I completed it in five years because I had a double major. The last two years I was working 30, 35 hours with a full course load.

The frustrating thing for me was that, even though I was doing fairly well, I never had the time to fully dedicate myself to my studies and be a student in the true sense of the word.

What did receiving the scholarship mean to you?

What the scholarship did for me – it was definitely a watershed moment in my life because it allowed me to dedicate myself fully to my studies and as a result I did fairly well my first year [in law school], and hence made me competitive and provided some really wonderful opportunities, which has led me to my current position with Morrison & Foerster.

And it opened a lot of doors in having the time to be a student, having the time to do community service work, and having time to develop a Web site that includes a guide I developed about the law school admission process geared toward disadvantaged students. I do a lot of work with students individually to help them get into law school.

And if it had not been for the scholarship, I would not have had the time to do this because I would have been working throughout law school.

Tell us about the guide

The disclaimer that I always make is that it's my perspective.

When I was applying to law school, I was pretty lost. There just weren't the resources out there, at least that I had. But one thing I did have was a great mentor. I worked with an attorney in Berkeley, and he read my application materials and really encouraged me. And if it wasn't for him, I don't think I would have gotten into UCLA or done as well as I did.

So the guide was my attempt at contributing something back, and when I started making a decent income, I put together the Web site with information about applying, hired a professional webmaster, and it really took off. I've incorporated as a non-profit, and I've applied for 501(c)(3) as we speak.

If it were not for the scholarship, I simply would not have had the time to do that.

What are you doing now with Morrison & Foerster?

Originally when I started working for Morrison & Foerster, I was working in the San Francisco office, but I transferred to the Los Angeles office to be closer to my family.

I was born in East Los Angeles and I moved back there. It's the only place I could live right now.

I am a second year associate in Mo-Fo's litigation department. I handle mostly civil litigation matters, although I've done some work in securities, trademark, trade secrets. One of the bigger cases I was on was an internal investigation of a fairly major financial institution. A lot of discovery battles and things of that nature.

What are your hopes for the future? Would you like to, at some point, work full-time for the non-profit?

I have a wonderful board of directors, and they're very excited about expanding the organization. I would like to get it to the point where it can take care of itself, that it doesn't depend on me. I do a lot of workshops and things of that nature. And I've gained a lot from it. It's amazing, if you give people a little encouragement and couple that with some scholarships, good things happen.

Professionally, I'm still in the learning process like a lot of young lawyers. And I want to learn to do this the best as I can.

How has being a lawyer changed your life?

The first thing that comes to mind is my pro bono client. Because I think I've changed her life by being an attorney.

In April, I won a significant asylum case. My client was a woman from South America, who lived with some rather horrendous aspects of domestic violence and the whole litany of abuses. She fled and came to the United States seeking refuge. So I took on her case – my firm took on her case pro bono – and we won.

Gender-based claims in asylum law are very difficult to win. And if it wasn't for the fact that I was an attorney and had the wonderful resources of this firm, I don't know if she would have won. So, looking back on the significant fact that the scholarship, and law school, had on my life, I realize it's not only impacted my life, but the lives of many other people.

I believe that we're all part of a wonderful profession. The short time I've been a lawyer, I've met some wonderful lawyers. I know we don't necessarily have the best reputation as a profession, but it's amazing that when we really care about something, the kind of impact we can have on people's lives.

Speaking personally, this type of scholarship, involvement from state bars and from the ABA, trying to make this profession accessible to members who have not traditionally been involved with this great profession is a wonderful thing.

And for me, I don't see it as taking huge monumental leaps, it's small things such as offering encouragement to students who comes from a poor background to continue with their studies, connecting them with a mentor. More long-term projects such as the Legal Opportunity Scholarship really make a difference. Sometimes when you write a check, or I write a check, you don't always see the difference. But people should realize that either by donating their time or money, they really are making a difference.

As attorneys, we're all very busy. But I think we should try to remember what a wonderful impact we can have as a profession. And to get more people involved who haven't traditionally been involved, that can only benefit them and society as a whole.

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