Nov. 22, 2013

USF Women Lawyers Committee presents student scholarship

Nossaman LLP held a dinner event for the newest recipient of the University of San Francisco School of Law Women Lawyers Committee's Scholarship for Transitional Students. Nossaman's San Francisco administrative partner Yuliya Oryol is the current president of the committee and Susan Mendelsohn, who founded the USF Women Lawyers Committee, serves as vice president. The pair were on hand along with other members of the committee, USF alumni and the law school's dean, John Trasvina, to honor this year's scholarship recipient, Anna Manuel. Trasvina said he was proud to be part of a law school that has had a female majority among its students since 1981. He said law schools have been getting a bad rap recently but the need for legal services continues. "Law school applications have dropped by 40 percent but discrimination and legal needs have not dropped by 40 percent," he said. Manuel said she wouldn't have been able to afford to attend law school without the scholarship, and that she planned to continue working on the humanitarian activities that helped her win it. Manuel has attended human rights summits and worked for a variety of nonprofit and volunteer organizations. Among other endeavors, she has spent time leaving care packages for migrants on the Mexican border so they don't starve in the desert. — Joshua Sebold