The Memphis chapter of the Association for Women Attorneys (AWA) recently announced their 2015 scholarship recipients. Scholarship awards increased by $1,000 in 2015 for a grand total of $10,000, according to AWA scholarship committee chair Frances M. Riley.
MEAGAN OLIVIA JONES
Dorothy Osradker Memorial Scholarship of $2,500
Meagan Olivia Jones of Memphis believes in academic and community engagement, which is evidenced through her vast extracurricular activities at the University of Memphis. She is a 2L bar governor for her Student Bar Association; secretary in the AWA student chapter; member of the Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Travel Team; member of the Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity; member of the Public Action Law Society; member of the Health Law Society; member of the Black Law Students Association; and a student member of the Young Lawyer’s Division and Health Section of the Memphis Bar Association.
In addition, she is a volunteer with the Memphis Area Legal Association and the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary Convention. She also is a peer mentor for the 2014-2015 school year, representing one of 25 2Ls and 3Ls selected by the school’s deans.
She was very involved and excelled academically during her undergraduate studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where she obtained her bachelor of arts degree in communication with honors in May 2012. There, she was on the Dean’s List, Chancellor’s List and a member of the Lambda Pi Eta National Communication Honor Society. She was awarded the Florida Association of Wholesale Distributors Scholarship (FAWD), the Altadis USA Scholarship and the Arkansas Lottery Scholarship. She was a member of the Student Alumni Board, Hot Pink Ribbon Club, Pre-Law Society, Greeks Go Green and Arkansas Alumni Association, and she was active with Delta Delta Delta Fraternity.
She is currently an extern for the City of Memphis attorney’s office, transactional unit, where she provides research and helps revise and drafts contracts. She previously worked as a legal assistant for W. Pal Rainey, attorney-at-law in Marion, Ark. (2011), as an intern for Kent J. Rubens of Rieves, Rubens and Mayton Law Firm in West Memphis (2008), and as a substitute teacher in the Marion School District (2010-2012).
About the scholarship’s namesake: “Miss Dorothy” was known as a legend at City Hall where she served 14 city mayors and 11 city attorneys. In 59 years of employment, she was known to have used only one sick day. Miss Dorothy also was a former recipient of the Bobby Dunavant Public Servant award. In total, Miss Dorothy dedicated 65 years of her life serving the citizens of Memphis. She is regarded as a pioneer for all women in the legal community.
AURELIA VEDA PATTERSON
Judge Rita Stotts Scholarship of $2,500
A serious student of law, Aurelia Veda Patterson has made it her mission to amass as much practical experience in the profession as possible prior to graduation. She began in the summer of 2013 as a summer intern for the Shelby County District Attorney General’s Office, where she researched changes to Tennessee’s bail bondsmen statute for notification of criminal court judges. There, she also intercepted inmate communications that linked a defendant to the murder of a co-defendant.
In the spring of 2014, she was a student attorney for the University of Memphis Child and Family Litigation Clinic, where she served as guardian ad litem in dependency and neglect cases of the Shelby County Juvenile Court. In the summer of 2014, she became a law clerk for the Tennessee Board of Regents, Office of General Counsel in Nashville, where she researched both compliance statutes for member institutions and the Violence Against Women Act, and drafted institution-wide compliance policy. In the fall of 2014, she became a judicial extern, where she reviewed briefs and technical records for cases on appeal and researched and drafted opinions regarding direct appeals and post-conviction relief.
Currently, she serves as a legal extern for the Shelby County district attorney general’s office, juvenile court division. As a law student and juris doctor candidate for May 2015, she has remained involved in student activities, including Student Honor Council Student Justice (2013-2014); Frederick Douglass Moot Court Travel Team (2013-2014 quarter finalist); Moot Court Executive Board and Associate Justice for Mock Trial Competition (2014-2015); as well as the Leo S. Bearman Sr. American Inn of Court Pupil (2014-2015). She also received the Memphis Access and Diversity Law Scholarship and the Humphreys Fellowship (Professor Daniel Kiel).
Aurelia received her bachelor of arts degree in sociology with a minor in human and organizational development from Vanderbilt University in Nashville in May 2012.
About the scholarship’s namesake: Judge Stotts has been lauded as a selfless person and one of the first African-American lawyers in the Memphis community. Stotts also was a former recipient of the Marion Griffin-Frances Loring award for outstanding legal achievement. She was intensely involved in the fabric of her community, including Legal Services, EEOC, the University of Memphis law school and Leadership Memphis.
RACHEL N. CADE
Susan Clark Scholarship of $2,500
Rachel N. Cade of Memphis has invested her energies in the pursuit of academic excellence and leadership opportunities. She has a passion for advocacy and has pursued the goal of becoming a trial attorney since entering law school. Some of her achievements in advocacy include owning titles of associate justice over the First Year Competition, 2014-2015 Moot Court Board, as well as advocate for the American Bar Association National Moot Court Travel Team (2013-2014), reaching the finals of the Las Vegas Regional Competition.
She was a finalist in the Advanced Moot Court Competition and also won Best Brief and individually won Best Oral Advocate (fall 2013) for the Advanced Competition. She was named champion of the Freshman Moot Court Competition (spring 2013) as well as a Top Ten Oral Advocate and holds a Dean’s Award for Excellence in Legal Methods II for her oral advocacy skills.
In addition to advocacy, Cade has a passion for developing skills and working with others to improve their legal. She has received the CALI Award for Civil Procedure I (fall 2012) and for the Housing Adjudication Clinic (fall 2014), receiving the highest grade in the course. She also is a Cecil C. Humphreys Law fellow. As a 3L, Cade was selected and serves as a writing advisor in the Writing Center at the law school, aiding first year students in the transition to legal writing and research.
Her other activities at the law school include the U of M Law Review (summer 2013-present); serving as graduate assistant for professor Katharine T. Schaffzin (summer 2013-present); and serving as president of the AWA student society. In addition, Cade works as a law clerk for the Honorable Judge Gina C. Higgins in Shelby County Circuit Court Div. 4 and as a student representative for LexisNexis.
Her legal experience also includes that of extern for Judge Bernice Donald, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (spring 2014). Cade graduated cum laude in 2012 with a bachelor of science degree in communication, journalism and electronic media from The University of Tennessee at Knoxville (May 2012). She remained on the Dean’s List for the fall of 2008 and 2011and the spring of 2010-2012. She also served as vice president of Gamma Sigma Sigma Sorority (2010-2011), worked as a deejay for WUTK 90.3 “The Rock” radio station (2010-2012) and was a volunteer for the Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley (2008-2012) and for The Salvation Army (2009-2011).
About the scholarship’s namesake: Susan Clark was president of the Memphis chapter of the AWA in 1999 and was the recipient of the organization’s Marion Griffin-Frances Loring award in 2004. She also was president of the Memphis Bar Association in 2005. She died of cancer in early 2014 and the AWA Board now honors her posthumously with a scholarship bearing her name.
ARIEL ANTHONY
AWA Scholarship of $2,500
Ariel Anthony of Germantown has studied at home and abroad and worked for two international companies prior to her graduation date of May 2015 from the U of M Law School. She attended the University of Oxford, Lincoln College in Oxford, England, for the European Studies Program focusing on art history and the history of the Middle Ages (June 2010-Oct. 2010). She then received her bachelor of arts degree in business and economics (May 2012) from Rhodes College, where she was a Dean Scholarship recipient, a Gilman Scholarship honoree and Margaret Hyde Scholarship recipient.
She served as an in-house legal counsel intern at International Paper (May 2013-July 2013), where she assisted general counsel with business contracts and conducted research on environmental laws in foreign countries for expansion ventures and was a retail marketing intern for FedEx, where she created a centralized support line for all FedEx authorized ship centers (June 2009-Aug. 2009).
After her second year of law school, Ariel split her summer between Baker Donaldson in Memphis and Husch Blackwell in Chattanooga (May 2014-August 2014). She also is a past judicial extern for the Honorable U.S. Judge John T. Fowlkes of the Western District of Tennessee. Presently at the U of M Law School, she won the Dean’s Award for Excellence and Best Oral Advocate.
She also is a senior associate with the university’s Mental Health Law & Policy Journal; a member of the Frederick Douglass Moot Court Travel Team; a past participant in the Freshman Moot Court Competition; vice president of the AWA Student Society; and a professional liaison of the Black Law Student Association (BLSA). After taking the bar in July, Ariel will begin as an associate in the civil litigation group of Husch Blackwell in Chattanooga. Publications include The Political Economy of Women’s Professional Basketball in the United States: A Structure Conduct-Performance Approach –(Ariel Anthony et al), 19 Theoretical and Applied Economics, Nov. 21, 2012, at 107-126.
