On Thursday, March 23, the UMKC Black Law Students Association (BLSA) and the Hispanic Law Students Association (HLSA) hosted the annual Pipeline Scholarship Banquet at Shook, Hardy and Bacon LLP. The proceeds of the Pipeline Scholarship are given to either one or two incoming students of color, who demonstrate(s) financial need.
Since 2008, the BLSA and HLSA in association with other diverse student organizations, has helped encourage incoming and first year law students to enter, and stay in, the legal profession. At its inception, students noticed that there were too
few individuals of color matriculating at the UMKC School of Law, and felt compelled to do something about it. Thus, the Pipeline Scholarship was created.
While UMKC has made strides to increase diversity and outreach, barriers still stifle students of color from attending law school including socio-economic and education factors. These issues will not easily be solved, but if future and current attorneys can help even one student achieve their legal goals, we all will be better served by having diversity of thoughts, experiences and backgrounds to draw upon in our respective legal practices.
Past recipients of the Pipeline Scholarship have become leaders at UMKC as editors on Law Journals, participants in the National Moot Court Competition, National Mock Trial Team, National Contract Negotiations Team and a host of other extra-curricular activities. Upon graduation, these individuals have moved on to become prominent civil, criminal and government attorneys. The Pipeline Scholarship’s first recipient, Stephanie Burton, delivered a powerful speech at the Banquet on the scholarship’s impact and how the support from the legal community and UMKC Law cultivated her into the attorney she is today. If not for the gifts from firms and individuals to the Pipeline Scholarship, the full potential of these individuals may never have been realized.
If you would like to contribute to the Pipeline Scholarship, HLSA and BLSA are still taking donations here: https://law.umkc.edu/PipelineScholarship.