Introducing Our Amazing MCBA Scholarship Recipients

Christopher Locke and Anne Munene, Co-Chairs of MCBA Legal Scholarship Committee

MCBA founded its Legal Education Scholarship in 2011 under the leadership of MCBA PresidentOtis Bruce. The vision was to establish a scholarship fund to help deserving law students connectedto Marin County with their law school expenses. Seeded with an initial $50,000, the fund hasprovided 36 scholarships to 23 recipients. Every year, MCBA is proud to advance the legal careers ofthese accomplished students and to continuously expand the ranks of the MCBA Legal EducationScholarship alumni.

Katiuska Pimental Vargas, 3L - USF School of Law Ms. Vargas attended Novato High School and earned her Bachelor of Arts from UC Santa Cruz. As an immigrant, Ms. Vargas had to overcome her family's recurring struggle for economic stability. It was that environment that birthed her passion to fight for the rights of those who come from underserved backgrounds and have been marginalized in society. Ms. Vargas has served her community by working at the Marin County Public Defender’s office and for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s office conducting immigration and educational policy research. She has also been a community organizer around immigration issues, work for which California Senator Jim Beall (ret.) named her Woman of the Year. Last summer, Ms. Vargas was a judicial extern for Senior District Judge Susan Illston. As the first lawyer in her family, Ms. Vargas aspires to be a public interest attorney. She is fully funding her law school education without the benefit of financial aid and MCBA is honored to award her an MCBA Legal Education Scholarship. Read more about Ms. Vargas on USF's website.

Alejandra Chumbes, 2L - USF School of Law Ms. Chumbes' family moved to Marin from Peru when she was 12, where she graduated from Redwood High School. She is also the first in her family to attend college, having completed her undergraduate degree at the College of Marin and UC Santa Cruz. She served as an intern at Legal Aid of Marin and aspires to be an employment lawyer, currently serving as president of the Labor and Employment Law Students Association at USF. This summer, Alejandra will be a summer associate in the labor and employment practice at the McDermott law firm.

Natalie Dybeck, 1L - University of California, College of the Law Ms. Dybeck attended San Marin High School in Novato and earned her Bachelor of Arts from UCLA. She has shown a long-term commitment to serving her community, most recently working in Congressman Jared Huffman’s office. Prior to working in Congressman Huffman's office, she worked for the Marin County Fire Department, at the UCLA Center for American Politics and Public Policy, and volunteered for the successful Marin County Wildfire Prevention Authority Measure C campaign. At UCLA, she was the operations chair for a program that matched students with holocaust survivors for a weekly lunch focused on genocide education, and before college, she volunteered as a teacher’s aide at San Ramon Elementary School. As the first lawyer in her family, Ms. Dybeck aspires to be a public interest attorney specializing in environmental law and MCBA is honored to award her a Legal Education Scholarship.

Samantha Cox-Parra, 3L - Berkeley Law Samantha Cox-Parra has been an MCBA scholarship recipient for each of the past three years. She was born and raised in Marin and was the first in her family to attend college, also at UC Berkeley. She has served as an intern with Judge Beverly Wood and the Marin Public Defender’s Office and is active in law school affinity groups including La Raza, the Women of Color Collective, and First Generation Professionals. Also at Berkeley, she has done pro bono work for its Reproductive Justice Project and volunteers for the Samuelson Law and Technology Clinic. This fall, Ms. Cox-Parra will join Fenwick & West’s San Francisco office as an IP litigation associate.

Alexandria Kozak, 2L - Golden Gate School of Law Ms. Kozak earned her undergraduate degree from Sonoma State University and attended paralegal school before enrolling in law school. She worked as a criminal department filing clerk at Marin County Superior Court, and then as a legal assistant in the Marin District Attorney’s Office. This summer, Ms. Kozak will be an intern at Legal Aid of Marin, while she is also writing a law review article on labor trafficking.

Congratulations to all of our MCBA Legal Scholarship recipients! And our great appreciation to the generous donors to the fund. We raised close to $17,000 at MCBA's installation reception but we are still short of our goal of $20,000 so that we can award four $5000 scholarships in 2023.