Scholarships

NCAWA SCHOLARSHIPS

NCAWA provides annual scholarships to two deserving women who are students attending the state’s law schools.
This award has been named in honor of retired Chief Justice Sarah Parker of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.

The deadline to apply for NCAWA's 2024 Sarah Parker Scholarship Award is August 2nd, 2024.

In support of these scholarships, we ask you to consider donating directly to the fund.
Full instructions on how to donate can be found HERE.

For more information about this scholarship, please contact admin@ncawa.org.

We encourage you to learn more about the deserving women that this scholarship fund has supported by reading below.

Apply Here

NCAWA SARAH PARKER SCHOLARSHIP

NCAWA provides scholarships to deserving women students attending the state’s law schools. This award has been named in honor of retired Chief Justice Sarah Parker of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.

In past years, NCAWA offered the Sarah Parker Scholarship Awards to a deserving female student at each law school in North Carolina. In the academic year 2018-2019, NCAWA began offering two (2) Sarah Parker Scholarship Awards, each in the amount of $2,000, to two women students from North Carolina’s law schools. Scholarship recipients are leaders and/or active in their law schools and communities. Scholarship recipients are students who best exemplify, in their approach to the study and future practice of law, the incorporation of NCAWA’s goals of assuring the effective participation of women in the justice system and in public office, promoting the rights of women under the law and promoting and improving the administration of justice.

Prospective scholarship recipients must be law school students who are continuing their education through the fall semester of the current calendar year and cannot be graduating third-year law students.

2023 Sarah Parker Scholarship Award Winners

Juliana Bird

Juliana is a second-year law student at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Juliana was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a minor in Political Science. Between graduation and law school, Juliana served as an AmeriCorps Legal Advocate at South Coastal County Legal Services. There, Juliana advocated for the rights of clients who had faced severe trauma including domestic violence and sexual assault.

At UNC Law, Juliana serves as the President of the Anti-Death Penalty Project. Juliana is also a Staff Member on Volume 102 of the North Carolina Law Review and serves as the Winter Break Project Coordinator on the UNC Pro Bono Board. Juliana has maintained a commitment to service by completing over 200 hours of pro bono work. Juliana's pro bono work has focused on a wide range of topics, including projects for the TextAbby program, Disability Rights NC, Emancipate NC, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, and more. Outside of law school, Juliana serves as a legal monitor for A Women's Choice in Raleigh, NC. This past summer, while working as a summer intern for North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services, Juliana helped advocate for incarcerated individuals in North Carolina's prisons and jails.

After graduation, Juliana intends to continue her pro bono work and community service throughout North Carolina. Juliana focuses on prisoners' rights, particularly the rights of trans and intersex folks who are incarcerated in North Carolina. Overall, Juliana plans to combine interests in mental health advocacy, LGBTQ+ rights, and prisoners' rights to give folks in underrepresented communities access to legal resources.

Emily Ann Kocher

Emily Kocher is a third-year law student at the University of North Carolina School of Law. North Carolina has always been home for Emily. She grew up on her family's horse farm in Tryon, North Carolina, and attended the University of North Carolina for her undergraduate education where she double majored in Journalism and Political Science. While there, Emily served as the Executive Producer for UNC's student-run newscast, Carolina Week, founded the Green Team Environmental Club, and served as an intern for the North Carolina Public Interest Research Group where Emily was responsible for increasing UNC's student vote during the 2016 and 2018 elections. In addition to those organizations, Emily was able to combine her love for theater and her dedication to public service by performing in UNC Pauper Player's Performance Troupe which would perform at local hospitals, schools, and retirement homes.

After graduating in 2019, Emily worked as a paralegal at Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions. There, not only did she confirm her desire to become a lawyer, Emily joined the company's Women's Network. Through that employee resource group, Emily recognized the importance of having a professional group of women supporting each other and made friends across the company's divisions.

In law school, Emily served as president of UNC's Women In Law and co-pro bono coordinator of Law Students Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. During her time as president of Women In Law, Emily organized networking, educational, and social events aimed at creating a strong network of women across UNC Law's student body, faculty, and staff. Currently, Emily serves as the Executive Comments Editor of the North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review and will be working in UNC Law's Domestic and Sexual Violence Clinic. After graduation, Emily hopes to continue her involvement in NCAWA and intends to work as a litigator in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Previous Sarah Parker Scholarship Recipients:

2022: Gabrielle Mangru Delgado, Lexus Real
2021: Dorothy Chen, Margaret Hay
2020: Mireya Colin, Henna J. Shah
2019: Erica Bluford, Jacqueline Canzoneri
2018: Lauren Franklin, Niti Parthasarathy