Educating needy children is his goal
By Kristina Horton Flaherty
Staff Writer
|
Hahnel |
As a teenager, Jesse Hahnel received an “amazing” education through
a special urban magnet school program that bused in children, Hahnel among
them, from more affluent, predominantly white areas outside Washington, D.C.
But through the years, he also watched as disadvantaged minority children all
around him received a terrible education at the same school.
It was a troubling image that helped steer Hahnel down a path — from
Harvard to teaching stints at struggling inner-city schools and, finally, to
Stanford Law School.
“My passion is increasing the educational opportunities for disadvantaged
youth,” he says. “As a lawyer, I could have a really positive impact
on the kids who needed it the most and change the kind of education they got.
I could represent individual kids, but I could also really make a difference
at a larger level.”
For his deep commitment to children’s issues, Hahnel, 31, recently was
awarded a California Bar Foundation Law School Scholarship and was named this
year’s Jim Pfeiffer Scholar in honor of the foundation’s founding
executive director.
Hahnel is just one of 39 law students who each received foundation scholarships
of up to $7,500 this year—a total of $187,500 in scholarships—to
assist with tuition and related education expenses. The recipients, from 17
law schools, demonstrated a commitment to public service, as well as academic
excellence and financial need.
The Scholars:
Thirty-nine law students received a scholarship from the California Bar Foundation.
The students, their law school and the sponsoring law firms are:
CALIFORNIA WESTERN Catherine Pugh — Dreier
Stein & Kahan LLP Scholar; Anne Marie Rios
GOLDEN GATE UNIVERSITY Anna Benvenue;
Kira Murray
JOHN F. KENNEDY UNIVERSITY Peggy Bristol-Wright
LOYOLA Jonathan Ames; Jessica DeWitt; Ashley Ruiz
NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA Rana Chang
SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY Nicole Clemens
STANFORD Brian Bilford; Kristin Burford; Jesse
Hahnel — Jim Pfeiffer Scholar; Ruth Zemel
UC BERKELEY Lindsay Harris; Vanessa Ho — Seyfarth
Shaw Scholar; Melinda Pilling
UC DAVIS Nagmeh Shariatmadar
UC HASTINGS Raegan Joern; Matthew Melamed; Abigail
Sullivan
UCLA J. Andrew Boyle — Milstein,
Adelman & Kreger
Scholar; Vivek Mittal; Shayla Myers — Fulbright & Jaworski
L.L.P. Scholar; Carmina Ocampo — Munger, Tolles & Olson
LLP Scholar; Desmond
Wu
UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC McGEORGE Victor Copeland
UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO Hasmik Badalian; Rebecca
Blain; Desiree Serrano
UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO Phyra McCandless; Hannah
Seigel
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Emma-Elizabeth
Gonzalez — Cox, Castle & Nicholson LLP Scholar
VENTURA Denise Trerotola
WHITTIER David Minh Duc Do; Melissa Duchene; Melinda
Gomez; Amy Kaye and Kelly Nguyen.
|
|
|
Six of the top recipients received scholarships named for a sponsoring law
firm that pledged $30,000 each over three years. (Go to calbarfoundation.org.)
“We are thrilled to invest in impressive law students committed to giving
back to their communities,” said foundation board member Bradley S. Phillips,
a partner at the sponsoring firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson. “It is
an investment in human capital that will benefit the justice system for years
to come.”
When student loan debt can reach $100,000 or even more, taking a public interest
job can be challenging. The foundation scholarships recognize law students
for their commitment and help ease their debt.
Born in Maryland, Hahnel was raised by educators — his mother is a special
education teacher and his father is a college professor. But his first job
teaching eighth grade math in Washington, D.C., still came as a shock. “The
resources that these kids got was abysmal,” he recalls.
Hahnel was not given any curriculum and classes often did not have teachers. “These
were kids who really needed education the most; it’s the only way they
were going to make it in life,” he said. “It broke my heart.”
During a second teaching stint in New York City, he found similar problems — and
began considering a legal career as a way of making a broader difference. First,
he went to work for the KIPP Foundation (a national network of charter schools),
which, he says, was the “logical next step” in light of his growing
interest in education reform.
Hahnel then returned to Harvard for law school. But at a conference early
on, he was so inspired by Stanford law professor Bill Koski—director
of Stanford’s Youth and Education Legal Program—that he switched
schools to work with him.
While at Stanford, Hahnel has represented children with disabilities in administrative
proceedings through Stanford’s Youth and Education Legal Clinic and has
worked on education issues at Public Advocates and the National Center for
Youth Law.
Most recently, he has turned his attention to the plight of foster children
in group homes. He points to recent changes in California law that could improve
their lot: Such children, often shuffled between homes, now have the right
to stay in the same school through the academic year. They are entitled to
partial credit if they do move mid-term. They must be allowed into class at
a new school even if their records have not arrived. And they have the legal
right to an “educational surrogate” who will shepherd them through
their schooling—a perfect role, Hahnel suggests, for pro bono attorneys.
But while such changes “look good on paper,” Hahnel says, there
is little implementation or enforcement. “So they’re basically
empty promises,” he said.
Currently, the third-year law student is seeking fellowship funding to advocate
for foster children in Bay Area group homes and to work statewide for better
implementation and enforcement of such changes in the law.
“This group of kids is really in need of advocacy, Hahnel says. “They
don’t have parents to advocate on their behalf. They are some of our
most disadvantaged children.”
According to a recent foundation study, Hahnel’s commitment to public
interest law appears to be shared by many past scholarship awardees as well.
Since 1992, the foundation has awarded more than $2 million in law school scholarships
to nearly 500 students and nearly two-thirds of the tracked alumni are still
practicing public interest law.
“Investing in the next generation of public interest lawyers,” said
foundation President Scott Wylie, “is a cornerstone to building a better
justice system.”
|