BCLP Announces 2021 Diversity Scholarship Recipients

The international law firm BCLP has announced the 2021 recipients of its diversity scholarships, a component of the firm’s ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion. The diversity scholarship program awards scholarships to second-year law students.

Each scholarship recipient will receive $10,000 to help defray the cost of law school tuition and related expenses during the student’s final year of law school. Half of the scholarship will be paid after successful completion of BCLP’s Summer Associate Program. The other half will be paid prior to the second semester of the recipient’s third year of law school, providing they have received and accepted an offer to join the firm as an associate after completing their legal education.

The students who have been awarded diversity scholarships and joined the firm as summer associates are:

Courtney Burress is a law student at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, where she earned the 1L Legal Practice Excellence Award and the Dean’s List Award each semester. Among her numerous activities, she served as external co-president for OUTLaw and continues to serve as a SBA representative and Executive Board member for the class of 2022. For her last year of law school, she will take on additional roles as a senior executive editor for the Washington University Law Review and teaching assistant for Professor Jane Moul. Prior to law school, Burress was an administrative secretary for the Fourth District Appellate Court of Illinois and a research assistant with the Legislative Research Unit of the Illinois General Assembly in Springfield. Burress will work in BCLP’s St. Louis office.

Janessa Doyle is a law student at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, where she is an executive editor for Jurimetrics: The Journal of Law, Science, and Technology. Alongside a number of teaching assistant roles, she has served as vice president of the John P. Morris Black Law Student Association; as vice president of finance for the Student Bar Association; and will serve as the president of the ASU Law Federal Bar Association Student Chapter. Doyle has served as a judicial extern to the Hon. John J. Tuchi in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona; as a legal extern with the Maricopa County Office of the Public Defender in Phoenix; and as a staff attorney extern and JIOP participant in the Staff Attorney’s Office with the Arizona Supreme Court. Doyle works in the firm’s Phoenix office.

Emina Sadic Herzberger is a law student at the University of Georgia School of Law. She is a member of the executive board of the Georgia Law Review and serves as executive notes editor. She competed on behalf of UGA Law at the Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot competition during her 2L year and will serve as a coach during her 3L year. Herzberger served as president of the law school’s International Law Society and is vice president and co-founder of the Middle Eastern Law Student Association. In addition, she worked as a judicial extern for the Hon. Judge Michael L. Brown in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Georgia. Herzberger is fluent in Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian and proficient in French and German. She works in BCLP’s Atlanta office.

James Jones is a law student at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale School of Law. Jones has completed research and field work on the topics of healthy relationships, employment and reentry programs and served as the organizer and moderator of the Town Hall on Criminal Justice Reform and Mass Incarceration. He is an articles editor at the SIU Law Journal and president of the Black Law Student Association (BLSA). Among his prior professional experience, Jones worked as a diversity & inclusion outreach specialist with Walker-Miller Energy Services in Collinsville, Illinois; as an external organizer with the Service Employees International Union/Local 1 in St. Louis; and as a lead organizer of Decarcerate St. Louis, part of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment. He works in the firm’s St. Louis office. 

Jason Marquez is a law student at Fordham University School of Law in New York. Marquez is a member of the Latin American Law Students Association. Outside of school, he has worked as a paralegal in and around New York since 2014, including working as a contract paralegal in BCLP’s New York office. As such, he assisted attorneys with all corporate, banking and structured finance transactions and securitization deals; reviewed and analyzed registration statements, tender offers, credit agreements and amendments, debt and securities indentures, and corporate governance documents; drafted and reviewed trustee’s certificates, incumbency and closing certificates, legal opinion letters and resolutions; and prepared and searched pertinent UCC, SEC and Federal Reserve form filings. Marquez is fluent in Spanish and Greek. He works in the firm’s New York office.