UCI Law alumna, students continue to win top awards

July 22, 2014

Recent UCI Law graduate Renee Amador ('14) has been selected to receive a Public Interest Bar Exam Scholarship, awarded by the California Bar Foundation to select law school graduates pursuing public interest careers. The scholarship provides bar review courses and cash awards to alleviate the burden of costs associated with taking the California Bar Exam. As a student, Amador was awarded Pro Bono High Honors for logging more than 200 hours of pro bono service in her three years at UCI Law. While participating in the Immigrant Rights Clinic, Amador helped Professors Annie Lai and Jessica Karp compose a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief in Puente Arizona v. Arpaio, a case challenging Arizona identity theft laws that grant police authority to carry out workplace raids targeting undocumented immigrants. In 2012, she was awarded a Wiley W. Manuel Certificate for Pro Bono Legal Services for volunteering numerous hours to provide legal services on behalf of the disadvantaged.

Ava Badiee ('16) is one of two recipients of a 2014 Law Student Scholarship awarded by the Iranian American Bar Association Foundation. Each year, the IABA grants one or more scholarships to law students of Iranian heritage who have demonstrated a commitment to the advancement of the Iranian-American community. At UCI Law, Badiee has been involved with the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Program and the American Constitution Society. She is currently a judicial extern at the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California and will serve as the 2014-15 student director of the Iranian Bar Association Orange County Chapter. Prior to attending UCI Law, Badiee taught English at a children’s home in Nepal and was involved with JusticeCorps.

Ginger Grimes ('15) is first runner-up in the 2014 National LGBT Bar Association Michael Greenberg Student Writing Competition. The annual contest honors the memory of prominent LGBT Bar Association board member Michael Greenberg by recognizing outstanding law student scholarship on the legal issues affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons. Grimes received recognition for her paper “Masking the Reemergence of Immutability with ‘Outcomes for Children.’” As first runner-up, she was awarded free registration to the 2014 Lavender Law Conference and Career Fair, to be held Aug. 21-23 in New York.