|
California
Law Student Wins $3,500 Strait Minority Scholarship
For Immediate Release
June 13, 2002
A first-year
law student from California was awarded the AALL and West Group
George A. Strait Minority Scholarship for $3,500.
Mary Tu Thai,
23, will use the funds to help pay for her law school education
at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento,
Calif. The scholarship is awarded to college graduates with law
library experience who are members of a minority group as defined
by current U.S. government guidelines and are degree candidates
in accredited library or law schools.
Thai credits
her interest in and preparation for law school to her seven-year
stint at the Santa Clara County Law Library in San Jose, Calif.
She worked there part time during her high school and college years
labeling materials; shelving books; and interacting with attorneys,
paralegals and pro se patrons. Thai learned about legal research
and how the legal system plays a large part in everyone's lives.
Although she
plans on practicing law after she graduates, she will not rule out
law librarianship either.
"My career
goal is to practice law for a few years, so that I know enough about
contract and property law to practice internationally. Maybe after
10-15 years of legal practice, I plan to get my Ph.D. in economics.
With that degree, I plan to teach part time while raising a family,"
according to Thai's personal statement, which was included in her
application. "Maybe further along, I will come back and work
at the place that helped open my eyes to the law -- the law library."
The scholarship
was named in honor of George A. Strait (1914-1989), a longtime AALL
member and law librarian. His career included working at the Harvard
University Law School Library for 20 years. He left Harvard twice
in that time to spearhead building the library collections at Northeastern
University School of Law in Boston and the Antioch School of Law
in Washington, D.C. After leaving Harvard, he became the director
of the law library and professor of law at the University of Iowa
College of Law. He was awarded the AALL (now Marian Gould Gallagher)
Distinguished Service Award in 1989.
For more information
about the scholarship, please go to http://www.aallnet.org/services/sch_strait.asp.
| 
