Austin Bar LGBTQ+ Law Section Scholarship - 2025

Deadline:
Rolling (early submission encouraged; we aim to make the award in August)

Award Amounts:
$20,000 total to be awarded. Individual scholarships will likely range from $2,500 to $5,000,
depending on the quality of the applications received.

Eligibility:
Applicants must be currently enrolled, about to begin their 1L year, or be a recent graduate of an
accredited public or private law school located in the State of Texas.

How to Apply:
Email a single PDF file containing the following documents (in this order) to Ms. DeLaine Ward
at delaine@austinbar.org. The PDF file should be named with the following format: date you
submit the application.surname.2025 LGBTQ Law Scholarship.pdf (2025.06.01.Ward.2025
LGBTQ Law Scholarship):

1. Essay (your name must appear in the top left-hand corner)
2. Resume
3. Academic Record (unofficial transcript or, if you’re an incoming 1L, an acceptance letter)
4. Financial Need Statement (optional)

Essay Prompt:
Applicants must submit a written essay. Your essay should reflect on how immutable
characteristics—such as race, ethnicity, the sex assigned to an individual at birth, sexual
orientation, or disability status—should or should not be considered by decision-makers.

You might consider examples such as:

• A district court judge making child-related orders in a case involving a mother and a father
• A hiring manager evaluating a racially diverse pool of job applicants
• The use of the “gay panic” defense in criminal law

Can, or should, decision-makers take into account characteristics that a person cannot change about
themselves? When is it fair? When is it harmful? How is a trait classified as immutable?

What We’re Looking For:
The scholarship committee is not seeking any specific position or grading your essay against a
predetermined rubric. In past years, the committee has included six lawyers. We each review
applications separately. Then we meet and discuss the applications we found the most thoughtful,
memorable, or challenging. Essay’s with personal perspectives are often favored.

Our goal is to award four scholarships of $5,000 each. That said, some years we’ve liked five
finalists, so we’ve awarded three scholarships at $5,000 and two at $2,500.