Courtesy of Lisa Orozco

Lisa Orozco, center, along with her husband Johnny, right, and their two children.

Daily Journal Staff Writer

Despite having her first child, Rami, at 15, Lisa Orozco wasn't about to give up on her dream of becoming a lawyer.

But balancing motherhood and her studies weren't Orozco's only challenges. Her son's father was in a gang. And her mother, while willing to support her daughter to help her graduate from high school, thought she should work full time, rather than go to college.

"She couldn't understand what I was doing it for," said Orozco, now 30. "It was sort of a struggle to convince her I wasn't doing it to avoid responsibility. I wanted a better life for us."

Orozco's perseverance paid off.

College, marriage and a daughter later, Orozco recently graduated from California Western School of Law, is studying for the Bar Exam, and wants to be a public defender.

To help her on her way, Orozco received a scholarship from the California Bar Foundation, which provides $2,000 to help cover the costs of taking the Bar exam.

Orozco was one of 12 to receive Rosenthal Bar Exam Scholarships, given to aspiring public-interest lawyers who have logged a lot of volunteer hours, done well academically, and have big law school debts.

In addition to Orozco, two other California Western School of Law students received scholarships: Kyung Eun Latimer and Liseth Saravia. The other recipients are Katrina Eiland and Rachel Marshall, from Stanford Law School; Angela McNair Turner, from UC Berkeley School of Law; Meredith Alexander and Anna Claire Johnson, from UC Hastings College of the Law; Maribel Gonzalez and Julia Vazquez, from UCLA School of Law, and Jessica Hewins and Harden Sooper, from USC Gould School of Law.

Rachel Marshall, one of two former teachers awarded the scholarship, used to teach high school history in the Bronx. But Marshall had long been interested in criminal justice and civil rights and didn't just want to teach young people; she wanted to be able to help them.

Seeing a former student - one of the brightest young men in his class - sent to prison after taking the rap for someone else's crime, only increased that desire.

Since beginning law school, Marshall, 28, has worked at the Southern Center for Human Rights and the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office, among other organizations.

But even before leaving her job as a teacher, Marshall, who plans to clerk for a U.S. District Court judge after graduation, made some key contributions to the law.

Several former students, inspired by law-related lessons Marshall worked into her curriculum, are interested in becoming lawyers.

One of them is studying to take the Law School Admission Test to enroll in law school, just as Marshall is leaving it.

"It's surreal," she said.

Thanks also to a Skadden fellowship, another scholarship recipient, Angela McNair Turner, plans to work for the Los Angeles Community Action Network, helping to provide legal services to low-income families in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles.

In college, Turner volunteered to both help families displaced by Hurricane Katrina and organized donation drives help victims. Turner says her childhood experiences helped to fuel her desire to do public interest law.

Growing up, Turner lived in the low-income Los Angeles suburbs of Compton and Carson. She remembers being startled by the disparity when her family settled in the more working-class community of Norwalk.

While Turner's old friends from Compton didn't see college as a possibility in their futures, Turner had her mom to inspire her. Turner's dad passed away when she was just 5, but, even as a single parent, Turner's mother persevered with her education goals, earning a master's degree in nursing science.

"I didn't have to imagine [college] because I saw my mom do it," Turner said.

As for Orozco's mom, who had her doubts about her daughter's ambitious dreams of being both a young mother and a college student, "she couldn't be more proud," Orozco said.

"She gets it, and now she [says] 'I'm glad you did what you did. You were stubborn.'"