Becoming an attorney will not only benefit my family and I in a tremendous way, through better financial opportunities, stability and well-being, but it will increase our philanthropy efforts in a new exciting way, which is the main reason I am pursuing my Juris Doctorate. I have also grown up watching many injustices happen around me with my fellow man and to this world. Our environment is suffering, our oceans are dying and all of this while disease continues to run a race around our children. Becoming an attorney is more than a court room to me, it’s a battlefield that encompasses many different arenas where I fight for families, individuals and businesses in order to create, obtain and/or sustain their future well-being. It’s been a war that I have been apart of for many years now, only wearing different armor without enough knowledge to continue. I owned a mental health business for eight years. Due to the pandemic, I lost that business and the ability to give back to our community as I did several times a year through food banks, job placement, housing resources and more. This was a devastating blow to the efforts in my community. I was struggling to keep my home, my way life, and my stability for my family, however, I lost everything tangible to my family and I. However, I did not allow this to break my spirit or my continued efforts to assist others in need. With every chance I got, I went after opportunities to reopen my business and keep helping people. But I was met with a “No” every time, even when it came to servicing my clients and obtaining the approval for what was deemed medically necessary, I was met with a “No.” I could not accept it and it prompted me to need to learn more about the legal side of business, enterprise, insurance, family law and how I can take this knowledge and use it to help others. I will not only be able to give back in the traditional manner that my family has been utilizing all these years, but now I can offer legal advice and pro bono work for struggling low-income families. I have watched the legal proceedings from both before and after the events of the pandemic. I aim to provide a non-profit organization that will benefit a specific dynamic in our population who are suffering largely. This includes those who are suffering from mental illness, domestic violence and homeless. I will not only be able to do all of the things that I’ve done before when I had my Behavioral health agency, but I will have the ability, opportunity and knowledge to do more, including pro bono work in the family and civil law areas, business consulting, and other philanthropy efforts that are beneficial to my community. I want to give people a fair opportunity to know their rights and responsibilities when it comes to laws, as well as how to easily interpret specific factors related to their cases Living in Las Vegas, I have seen and met so many people that lose everything at no fault of their own except circumstances, and all they need is one person to care enough to give them a chance. I am that person. We are those people. All we need is that chance.

Knowledge is an amazing power, along with the willingness and immense drive to overcome obstacles, flourish within my set career and persevere to the top. In a perfect world, I would have achieved my educational goals early in life, however, life has a way of taking you down abrupt narrow roads. Since I was about 12 years old, I have had very important goals set in every aspect of my life, including my personal goals, academic goals and my professional goals. Most of the goals coincide with each other and flow towards the same ocean of aspirations, importance and stability. These goals were derailed by the loss of my father and my body succumbing to Ovarian cancer, which diminished several years of my life. I ended up losing my business during Covid and I lost the will to find myself in a better situation because I thought I would never have the opportunity to obtain any goals that I had set. However, being a single mother to two awesome children, I knew that I had to fight. I had to find the strength to get up and press forward, no matter the circumstances or the death sentence laid before me. I found a great doctor and I started the healing process, realizing how important it is not to give up. I couldn't quit. Now that I have grieved the loss of my father, overcame a 10-year battle with cancer, found myself back in the workforce and my children are grown, I have found myself in the position to pursue my own goals and assist my community with some of the issues that we are experiencing daily. Education has always been the key to unlocking opportunities. Unfortunately, higher education has not always been readily available for members of my family to utilize. Furthering my education by obtaining my bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in Philosophy, with an emphasis on Law and Justice, and moving towards my Juris Doctorate, will not only benefit my family and me in a tremendous way personally but also the extremely large amount of people who are dealing with mental illness, domestic violence and homelessness. I aim to provide a non-profit organization that will benefit this dynamic in our population who are suffering largely. I will not only be able to do all of the things that I’ve done before when I had my Behavioral health agency, but I will have the ability, opportunity and knowledge to do more, including pro bono work in the family and civil law areas, business consulting, and other philanthropy efforts that are beneficial to my community. Living in Las Vegas, I have seen and met so many people that lose everything, a lot of it by simple misfortunes, and all they need is one person to care enough to give them a chance. I am that person. We are those people!

Life took a swift turn when my family and I became homeless. I never thought that I would find myself in such a horrid situation. The embarrassment that I felt and continue to feel overwhelms at times, as it consists of a pain that is far beyond anything I have ever felt before. I am an older student in my third year of college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, majoring in Psychology with a minor in Philosophy, emphasis on law and justice. I have three gorgeous, amazing children, a fantastic, hard-working husband and a beautiful English bulldog that support me in everything that I do. My husband and I found ourselves without our business, which thrived for eight years, diminishing when Covid-19 hit. My family and I slowly watched our savings dwindle as we took every measure to cut every corner in order to make it as long as we could. We sought employment in so many places, and every day we were met with excuses: "You're overqualified, " "Why would you want to work here with your experience," "We don't have a space for your qualifications," And the list goes on. We went on every public assistance available and applied for housing assistance when the opportunities became available. However, we weren't getting hired anywhere. My daughter finally found employment at a local warehouse, but it was part-time and seasonal. Those funds ran out quickly, just trying to maintain our daily lives. It was becoming apparent that we would become homeless soon if we could not obtain employment. We thought about some of the services that our business utilized to help those in need. We owned a behavioral health agency and did volunteer work in our community every month as a way to give back to those that found themselves in need of our services. We had a food and clothing pantry and various programs and resources for education, employment opportunities, food pantries and more. On top of that, our main focus was the mental health of our patients, which was assessed, treated and maintained through our Licensed Therapist, Qualified Behavior Aides and Qualified Mental Health Assistants. So, we dug through our records and began utilizing the services that we qualified for. However, this still wasn't enough. On August 22, 2023, my family and I put all of our things into my mother's garage, sold everything else and checked into a hotel. Of course, this became very pricey. During this process, we lost a very close family member and found ourselves without a home. We found shelter with my mother and sister where I continued to look for work and go to school. I finally received the call I had been waiting for from the National Domestic Violence Hotline and I was hired as Phone Advocate. I worked for about a month before we found an apartment and we were able to move in. I have continued with my education and learned so many heartbreaking elements of domestic violence that it has enticed me to secure a nonprofit of my own, to assist those that no longer have a home and domestic violence survivors, with a safe place to start their healing process, advocacy, legal services, childcare services and more. My heart and eyes have been opened to the unfortunate trail of events that can lead a person to become homeless as well as the need for more resources that domestic violence survivors lack. I plan to give back in this way and to help others the way so many have helped me. To rise Above!

I have always been engaged with obtaining more knowledge. I love to read and write and I have been an athlete all of my life. My best friend, who supported every goal and led me through every obstacle passed away in 2011. He held my hand through some of the worst situations in my life, from divorce, (being a single mom), to finding out I had Ovarian Cancer. This person was my father. He was taken unexpectedly and suddenly. I had just had a conversation with him 48 hours prior before receiving the news. My entire world stood still. I lost my motivation, my hunger to learn and I dropped out of school losing all will to move forward. Years went by and I started thinking about how my father would feel disappointed that I wasn’t pursuing my career and goals in life. I had stopped fighting. I was in life but not a part of life. He had always been a fighter, a former US Army, and he’s pushed me to fight harder as well through all of my situations, especially cancer. I thought about all of these things and I realized that my life is worth fighting for. My goals and ambitions mean something to more than just me. So, I picked up a letter that my father had written me before he passed and at the end it simply stated, “The person you are supposed to be is already who you are. Never stop pressing forward and don’t allow ANYONE to tell you or show you any different baby girl. Keep fighting!” These are words that I will never forget. That day I decided to fight for what I know I deserve. I registered for college and I’ve been pressing my way through ever since. At this point I decided that not only do I need to continue my own fight, but I need to fight for others as well, which is why I decided to go into the law field and continue working with Domestic Violence survivors who fight for their lives every day. Many families need help and guidance and I know that my mission in life is to help others and therefore I fight!

I am a mother of two and grandmother of one handsome baby boy. My family is very important to me and unfortunately when I first moved to Las Vegas my baby girl was physically abused in a local daycare. I remember feeling so helpless. My daughter shutdown and stop speaking. I was informed of a program via the school district that could help my daughter speak again after the trauma she experienced. H This caused me to want to know more about the mental health field so I could help her and other children that have dealt with this. I eventually opened a mental health agency, helping both youth and adults through a sound family/team oriented therapeutic model. Although my family and I have helped many families, I've realized that it's not enough. I am limited with my knowledge of the law and assisting the families that come to me. Therefore, I felt it necessary that I obtain my law degree in an effort to increase my knowledge and be able to create programs that can assist these families with their extended needs. Giving them a better opportunity to assimilate into society at a fully functioning level.

As an African American female survivor of severe physical and verbal abuse, I've spent the last decade and a half working in the behavioral health field, working with substance abuse patients, teaching those that, have been or are currently in, an abusive relationship, about self- care, self-worth, self-esteem and anxiety management as well as creating programs that ensure increased behavioral stability and rapidly growing positive cognitive abilities. These programs allow people in my community options for getting out of these terrible situations, as well as a various empathetic and sympathetic ears to listen and understand the complexities that arise in these various abusive relationships, including the highly volatile relationships with unhealthy substances. I've learned from my own experience that being able to overcome such circumstances takes time, love and support as well as a thorough plan. Through a higher education in the field of law, I will not only be able to assist my community with their behavioral needs, but also their legal needs, which closely tie into one's mental state. Through my legal work I will assist those in need with the legal aspects of their individual cases. Whether that be prosecuting an abuser or assisting in the defense of a substance abuse case. Many of these will be done pro Bono. Together, with the mental health aspect of my work, I will incorporate programs that give my community the opportunities they need to move past their circumstances and improve their quality of life. Even if that means starting over fresh in a new environment. My aim is to give my community the opportunities that others are afforded in an effort to increase full behavioral functionality, maintain emotional stability and pursue increased cognitive abilities. Thus, opening the door to more diverse opportunities for African American women.

I look at life with a comical view. The seriousness will eliminate all existence if I let it. As the blood runs through my bleeding heart, I am brought to tears by the need to do more than stand by and watch our world waste away in the wind. Being of reasonable intelligence I search for answers to questions not written, anticipating the knowledge at hand, vying for the opportunity to showcase my written and spoken talent in an eloquent configuration of letters and numbers. I flow seamlessly through life, having been prevalent through the Storm of 2011 that took my father and Hurricane Cancer, that I survived. I'm Me.

I am an avid writer with a soft spot for helping others that have struggled with mental illness. Unfortunately, I have suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts since adolescence. Thankfully, I no longer do. Having had to deal with my parent's horrible arguments, fast forwarding to their divorce, into the loss of my father now ten years ago. What I found is that writing and helping others, allows me to release all those emotions in a positive way that doesn't hurt myself or anyone else. The transfer of energy returns in a strong positive light that reduces the sadness and anger that I've felt for so long. Upon understanding what worked for me and watching so many in my community suffer from the same emotions that I have, I first created the Community Outreach Ministry Program (C.O.M.P.) here in Las Vegas, NV through my church. I helped families with food, clothing and hygiene items on the weekends. My children helped as well in between going to practices and school. I collected clothing items from church members and others in the community along with non-perishable food items throughout the week. On Saturdays, the public was invited to these items along with resources for other food banks, housing and government assistance. I felt that this only helped on a small scale and decided to open a Mental Health agency in 2013. This allowed me to assist hundreds of families with depression, communication, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, psychosis and so much more. I did this through positive reinforcements: family planning, therapy(individual, group and family), activities, goal setting and hobbies, and more. I've always known that my life mission is to assist others and in order to do so, I must first better myself in order to better others. Through enhancing my education I will have a greater ability to create foundations and programs to assist with not only healing my community but the world. Through my law degree, I will establish a non profit to help secure housing for the homeless and provide job placement as well as provide pro bono work on a regular basis. I will also create several programs to continue to assist with the food crisis that many families face, as well as housing resources, community resources, government assistance and more. I know that this world needs to heal and that I can make a difference in a major way through hard work, dedication and perseverance.

Excerpt from my book, VSJ, The Coming of the End: I have never been a fan of the cold air. It bites against my skin. Tormenting me with bitter fatigue and wretched hatred upon my cheeks. Harsh, thin and terrible to breathe in. My lungs ache from its tiny footsteps, dancing across my lungs, causing me to grip my chest and cough slightly. I’m exhausted, I’m old now. Well at least to my standards. The years have passed so quickly, I tend to forget the day of the week. But never her. I shiver all over and take a sip of coffee. Most people find it hard to come across nowadays. I wrap my blanket a little closer, these old bones can’t bare the stiffness that the cold brings. I lean back and survey the room again. Trying my damnedest to understand the importance of the people that infiltrate this area. I fidget a little. I simply can’t sit here and pretend that I am comfortable. In this room, right now, at this moment with everyone standing over me asking me questions about her. It’s been so long since I’ve heard her name. I dare not say it myself. I surely haven’t spoken of the events that they wish me to spill. Why do they want to know about her? Of what interest is she to them besides the slaughter? I lean back and cross my legs, blanket wrapped tight around my shoulders. “What is that you wish to know about her?” I ask in a raspy tone. Living alone in exile for as many years as I have, you get used to being silent. Don’t think I’ve heard my own voice in a while. A slight grunt or two, maybe a little howl, but never a full sentence in ages. grunt or two, maybe a little howl, but never a full sentence in ages. “Mr. Roderick, you already know what we want,” Ms. Liani states in a frustrated tone. People’s lives are in danger Mr. Roderick. We need to know what happened out there. You’ve been closer to her than anyone ever has. Why won’t you help us?” “I gave my statement. What more is there to say?” I ask, now becoming more stressed and tired. Ms. Liani shoots a knife into my heart with her eyes. Growing tired from the endless rhetorical questions that lead to more questions that never get answered. But I was growing weary myself. Five years since that day we parted. Bombs flying, bullets falling, bodies being carried away. We were at war. The worst war this country or any other had ever seen. Things were different now...

Writing while listening to water is the best way for me to relax and take care of my mental health. I have always been an avid writer. It allows me to release all of the emotions that I hold on to in a positive manner and have that transfer of energy calm my mind and invite invigorating, complex, challenging, yet welcome thoughts and ideas. Through this I am able to become more creative and understanding. The water relaxes me through it's tranquility and calming nature. Whether its the ocean, a stream, or a tranquil waterfall from an at home fountain, I am transcended into meditational waves that ease the mind. I also like to travel, especially around the coast. It's nice to take in the scenery and beauty of the world in all of its glory. The mountains moving strong, the oceans dancing along the shore with the large trees swaying as I pass. Its an inviting sense of warmth and love along the road.

My life has been full of ups and downs. I lost one of the most important people in my life, my father, while battling cancer, raising two children as a single mother and owning and operating my own mental health business. All of these factors forced me to sit down, slow down and then stop my educational pursuits altogether. It's taken ten years to overcome the obstacles that have been placed before me and I can proudly say that after a long fight, I am cancer free, my children are grown and pursuing their own educational goals, even though they are still at home and I am on my own path to reaching my personal educational goals: Phd in International and Corporate Law, among other business pursuits and scientific interests. I have a new member of the family, my grandson, that also makes it challenging sometimes while doing school work, but it’s the best challenge of my life. It’s important that he spends time with his “Am Ma” (can’t say grandma yet). Therefore, time constraints have been placed on me, but I am pretty good at multi-tasking. Reading history and English books to my grandson while I’m studying, or cooking dinner and doing laundry while listening to a recorded lecture. Being in school has given me increased multi-tasking skills that I’m quite enjoying allowing me to persevere through and remain persistent and consistent in my educational and life goals.

Being the mother of young black children, I seek to improve equality amongst the human race on a daily basis. Whether it be through a random act of human kindness, by simply helping an elder with her groceries, to helping the neighbor with his yard to moving about the community and giving out food to the homeless, assisting with housing resources and resumes while providing information for educational resources in order to level the playing field. Although we have made many leaps in the right direction in our community through church efforts and mental health awareness, to help people understand each other, I feel that it is not enough. Motivation by ways of increased infiltration into the judicial system appears, by far, the best way to have a larger voice in this world. By obtaining my law degree I feel that I will be able to make a difference on a much larger scale, through politics and laws that increase equality in our world and philanthropic efforts that help the people of this world heal.

When it comes to my career goals, they are pretty simple yet highly important. I plan to open and sustain a prevalent, prestigious law practice while assisting the world through philanthropic efforts to decrease the homeless population, decrease the mental health issues amongst all people, but with a focus on children and young adults. Once I have obtained my PhD, I will actively seek the opportunity to open my own practice. Through this practice I will assist people from all walks of life, whether it be lawfully, financially, or mentally, in order to remove at least one piece of negativity that surrounds the human race. Committing random acts of kindness through volunteering and sharing my life will become a normal day that allows me to reach as many people as possible. I know that I will only be able to achieve this through a higher education, and not by barely getting by, but by truly accepting my life mission and diving in completely open to accepting all knowledge given to me. By doing this I will be able to make significant changes in the world and decrease the sadness that encompasses so many.

I am a single mother of two. I have a daughter that is now 22 years old and a son that is now 18. My daughter has a son as well, giving me a handsome grandbaby boy. I've waited for my children to become older to go back to school due to the time constraints that were placed on my life while they were young. They were both into sports and I was working full-time, taking care of them and the bills alone. I've always shown my children, that no matter how much we may struggle, it's always best to continue to help others. I created the Community Outreach Ministry Program (C.O.M.P.) here in Las Vegas, NV through my church. I helped families with food, clothing and hygiene items on the weekends. My children helped as well in between going to practices and school. I collected clothing items from church members and others in the community along with non-perishable food items throughout the week. On Saturdays, the public was invited to these items along with resources for other food banks, housing and government assistance. I felt that this only helped on a small scale and decided to open a Mental Health agency in 2013. This allowed me to assist hundreds of families with depression, communication, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, psychosis and so much more. I did this through positive reinforcements: therapy(individual, group and family), activities, goal setting and hobbies, family planning, and more. I've always known that my life mission is to assist others and in order to do so, I must first better myself in order to better others. Through pursuing a higher education in the field of law, my family and I will now have an enhanced ability to push our efforts to help heal the world further. Through my law degree, I will establish a non profit to secure housing for the homeless within special built communities that provide job placement and educational opportunities. I will provide pro bono work to those that are unable to afford an attorney but definitely deserve one. I will also create several programs to continue to assist with the food crisis that many families share in this world, along with educational programs, housing assistance, government assistance and job placement. This I plan to do not only in my own community, but in the entire world, as the entire world needs and deserves a chance to heal.

I am a single mother of two. I have a daughter that is now 22 years old and a son that is now 18. My daughter has a son as well, giving me a handsome grandbaby boy. I've waited for my children to become older to go back to school due to the time constraints that were placed on my life while they were young. They were both into sports and I was working full-time, taking care of them and the bills alone. I've always shown my children, that no matter how much we may struggle, it's always best to continue to help others. I created the Community Outreach Ministry Program (C.O.M.P.) here in Las Vegas, NV through my church. I helped families with food, clothing and hygiene items on the weekends. My children helped as well in between going to practices and school. I felt that this only helped on a small scale and decided to open a Mental Health agency in 2013. This allowed me to assist hundreds of families with depression, communication, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, psychosis and so much more. I did this through positive reinforcements: family planning, therapy(individual, group and family), activities, goal setting and hobbies, family planning, and more. I've always known that my life mission is to assist others. However, this still isn't enough. Although I was able to assist my community in a large way, I'm still no where close to the capacity that I wish to reach, which is an international scale. I know a lot about business, but not very much about law. I feel that by understanding law, the lawmaking rituals, politics and more, I will be able to enhance my ability to push my efforts to help heal the world further. Through my law degree, I will establish a non profit to secure housing for the homeless through communities built specifically for them that offer job placement and educational opportunities as well. I will, of course, have an increased number of pro bono cases for those that are unable to afford an attorney. I will also create several programs to continue to assist with the food crisis that many families are facing during these challenges times in our world. By creating these programs I will also be creating jobs, allowing the community to become financially stable while working within the community. . Living in Las Vegas, Nevada, I have seen and met so many people that have lose everything and all they need is one person to care enough to give them a chance. I am that person. We are those people. We need to continue to be those people.

My life has been full of ups and downs. I lost one of the most important people in my life, my father, while battling cancer myself. I have two children in school and I am a single mother, while owning and operating my own mental health business. All of these factors forced me to sit down, slow down and then stop my educational and life goal pursuits altogether. When my father passed, the air around me ceased to exist. Shortly thereafter I was diagnosed with Nodular Sclerosis Lymphoma, then Ovarian Cancer. I've been fighting for ten years, with great days and horrible days. All the while, still continuing to assist my community through my company. This allowed me to assist hundreds of families with depression, communication, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, psychosis and so much more. I did this through positive reinforcements: therapy(individual, group and family), activities, goal setting and hobbies, family planning, and more. I've always known that my life mission is to assist others and in order to do so, I must first better myself in order to better others. I can proudly say that after a long fight, I am cancer free, my children are grown and pursuing their own educational goals, even though they are still at home and I am on my own path to reaching my personal educational goals: Phd in International and Corporate Law, among other business pursuits and scientific interests. I have a new member of the family, my grandson, that also makes it challenging sometimes while doing school work, but it’s the best challenge of my life. It’s important that he spends time with his “Am Ma” (can’t say grandma yet). Therefore, time constraints have been placed on me, but I am pretty good at multi-tasking. Reading history and English books to my grandson while I’m studying, or cooking dinner and doing laundry while listening to a recorded lecture. Being in school has given me increased multi-tasking skills that I’m quite enjoying while allowing me to obtain knowledge that will transfer into bettering my community. When I receive my degree and open my Law practice, I will not only be able to do all of the things that I did before, I will have the ability to do more. More pro bono work, business consulting, open a non-profit that caters to the homeless population in order to decrease those numbers and make a real impact in my community. Living in Las Vegas, I have seen and met so many people that lose everything and all they need is one person to care enough to give them a chance. I am that person. We are those people.

I am an avid writer with a soft spot for helping others that have struggled with mental illness. Unfortunately, I have suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts since adolescence. Having had to deal with my parents horrible arguments, fast forwarding to their divorce, into the loss of my father now ten years ago. High school, for those looking from the outside, was a dream. However, I struggled with self-esteem issues, considering myself unattractive although I was a very popular basketball start. My name and picture ran in all the local papers, yet I never felt accomplished enough or good enough for those around me. During this time I experienced death and destruction on a wide scale across both sides of my family, losing both sets of grandparents, uncles and aunts. I didn't know how to cope with my emotions, but I knew that every moment that I had to give back, I felt better. I had also tried many other things to cease the sadness that I felt in my life. What I found is that writing and helping others, allows me to release all those emotions in a positive way that doesn't hurt myself or anyone else. The transfer of energy returns in a strong positive light that reduces the sadness and anger that I've felt for so long. Upon understanding what worked for me and watching so many in my community suffer from the same emotions that I have, I first created the Community Outreach Ministry Program (C.O.M.P.) here in Las Vegas, NV through my church. I helped families with food, clothing and hygiene items on the weekends. My children helped as well in between going to practices and school. I collected clothing items from church members and others in the community along with non-perishable food items throughout the week. On Saturdays, the public was invited to these items along with resources for other food banks, housing and government assistance. I felt that this only helped on a small scale and decided to open a Mental Health agency in 2013. This allowed me to assist hundreds of families with depression, communication, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, psychosis and so much more. I did this through positive reinforcements: family planning, therapy(individual, group and family), activities, goal setting and hobbies, family planning, and more. I've always known that my life mission is to assist others and in order to do so, I must first better myself in order to better others. Through enhancing my education I will have a greater ability to create foundations and programs to assist with not only healing my community but the world.

I am a single mother of two. I have a daughter that is now 22 years old and a son that is now 18. My daughter has a son as well, giving me a handsome grandbaby boy. I've waited for my children to become older to go back to school due to the time constraints that were placed on my life while they were young. They were both into sports and I was working full-time, taking care of them and the bills alone. I've always shown my children, that no matter how much we may struggle, it's always best to continue to help others. I created the Community Outreach Ministry Program (C.O.M.P.) here in Las Vegas, NV through my church. I helped families with food, clothing and hygiene items on the weekends. My children helped as well in between going to practices and school. Now that we are all older, pursuing a higher education in the field of law will allow my family and I an enhanced ability to push our efforts to help heal the world further. Through my law degree, I will establish a non profit to secure housing for the homeless, have pro bono cases on the regular and create a program to continue to assist with the food crisis that many families share. I understand that in order to help better others, I have to first better myself.