LegalMatch.com's Legal Futures Initiative Scholarship

Hello, my name is Peyton, and I plan on pursuing a career as a family attorney! I'm from Montgomery, Alabama, and grew up in a household that was never very stable or supportive throughout my childhood. My brother and I were passed through different households before moving in with my grandmother, but the entire process led me to see the importance of child advocacy at a very young age. My grandmother was the greatest role model I could have asked for, who showed me what it looked like to live out each of these qualities- kindness, listening, and empathy- daily. She consistently made sure I realized the beauty of my circumstances and the value of my education, and taught me how to find self-fulfillment and joy through loving and serving others well. Now that I am currently pursuing my undergraduate in Legal Studies, I hold these principles more closely to me than ever. Although I love the process of legal research, procedures, and arguments, the center of my love for the law has always been advocacy. I began working as a Guardian ad Litem when I was nineteen and currently work at a Christian Family Law firm in Lakeland, which have both shown me so closely how impactful every decision, conversation, and action affects real people and real families. I am especially passionate about child advocacy and representing victims of domestic violence, abuse, and neglect. Through GAL specifically, I've discovered a new love not only for the vistims of these circumstances, but for every party involved. I've seen multiple redemptive stories of parents taking accountability for their actions and working through extensive plans to be reunited with their kids. I've seen kids who have experienced more pain at such a young age than should ever be allowed, and who still forgive more freely and love more deeply than a lot of adults I know in person. I have truly fallen in love with the advocacy involved in law, as well as the research and writing procedures that allow me to build compelling arguments to represent the values I hold and the people I believe in. It is because of every part of my story that I love the balance of justice and mercy that law provides and how these principles are never completely independent of each other. In my career as a family attorney, I specifically want to move toward representing the interests of low-income families and providing non-transactional support for people in their most vulnerable and sometimes dehumanizing situations.