2019 Morgan Lewis Foundation Diversity award winners include (top row from left) Andrew Ebrahem, Bhavin Shah, Esther Kang, Henry Leung and (bottom row, from left) Jordan Jean, Risa Kuroda, Jesse Kirkland, Benjameen Quarless. (Courtesy photos)

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius' Morgan Lewis Foundation has selected eight law students to receive its latest batch of diversity scholarships, the firm announced Wednesday.

Established in 2014, the Morgan Lewis Foundation Diversity Scholarship awards $40,000 to diverse law students who aspire to increase diversity in the legal profession. The awards are paid in installments at the beginning of each semester during the second and third years of law school.

This year, students from seven law schools won the award: Andrew Ebrahem of the University of Virginia School of Law; Jordan Jean of The George Washington University Law School; Esther Kang and Bhavin Shah of the University of Pennsylvania Law School; Jesse Kirkland of the New York University School of Law; Risa Kuroda of the Boston College Law School; Henry Leung of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law; and Benjameen Quarless of the University of Michigan Law School.

Amanda Smith, chair of the Morgan Lewis Foundation and the firm's chief engagement officer, said this year's class of winners was exceptionally diverse, including men and women of different ethnicity, races, backgrounds and career goals. But they share a collective passion for enhancing diversity in the legal industry, she said.

“Most importantly, each individual we selected spoke with us in moving terms about how they themselves wanted to improve the legal industry and help the people they might share characteristics with, who would benefit from seeing someone more senior in the profession,” Smith said. “That's the unifying thread that binds them.”

The Morgan Lewis Foundation was established in 2014 from a fee award granted to the firm for its pro bono work benefiting African American families in Baltimore, who were fighting against a century of government-sponsored racial segregation in public housing.

“Due to the nature of the matter, the only thing we felt was appropriate to do with that very large award was to use it to provide an endowment for our foundation” said Smith, who was formerly a pro bono counsel at the firm and later became Morgan Lewis' first pro bono partner. “It came out of a desire to pay it forward. Our thoughts immediately turned to diversity and what we could do to further diversity in the legal profession.”

Smith said that, when the foundation's board was established, it was made up of a group of partners in the firm, including women and people of color, who supported the mission of the foundation: to “increase diversity in the legal profession by granting scholarships to deserving 2L and 3L students of color at a certain number of select schools who demonstrate academic excellence and substantial financial need.”

Currently, partners Michelle Park Chiu, Nagwa Hultquist, Rahul Kapoor, Tim Levin, Bob McDonnell, Grace Speights, Chuck Shimada and Sara Wells are on the board along with Smith.

Saba Habte, associate with Morgan Lewis in Boston.

Although the award is paid out over the final two years of a student's time at law school, Smith said the scholarship is not associated with recruitment at Morgan Lewis, and there is no expectation that award recipients work at the firm after graduation. This stipulation ensures that the award is given out in the spirit of the foundation's mission, which is to promote diversity in the industry, Smith said.

“There's a really no-strings-attached element to it [the award] that we felt was really important,” she said.

In the five years since the Morgan Lewis Foundation began granting scholarships, law students have graduated and have taken jobs with different firms, gone on to complete clerkships, entered public policy roles and more.

One scholarship recipient, Saba Habte, who won the award in 2016, joined Morgan Lewis after graduating in 2018. Habte's mother fled Eritrea, a small country bordering Ethiopia, Sudan and the Red Sea, when she was pregnant, seeking refuge during the country's war of Independence. She grew up with her mother in Canada and later moved to New York to work at the United Nations.

Habte said her family's background as immigrants who dealt with the legal system in order to live in another country, as well as her work at the UN, solidified that she wanted to become a lawyer herself.

“The desire had always been there, and it came from these personal experiences,” she said.

Habte, who had three children of her own while a student at Boston College Law School, said the scholarship alleviated some of the stress surrounding paying for school.

“It's [the cost] is an insurmountable obstacle for a lot of people, especially for underrepresented groups,” she said, noting that receiving the Morgan Lewis Foundation Diversity Scholarship helped eliminate cost barriers to graduation, including tuition, fees and books.

“I don't know if I'd have been able to complete my legal education if it wasn't for this scholarship,” Habte said.