King Hall Honors 2012 KHOP Students
UC Davis School of Law faculty, students, and staff gathered with friends and family of students in the King Hall Outreach Program (KHOP) for an awards banquet honoring the 2012 KHOP participants on August 3. The event featured remarks from Dean Kevin R. Johnson, Assistant Dean for Admission and Enrollment Sharon Pinkney, a keynote speech by the Honorable Alberto Roldan '92, and an awards presentation honoring the 31 KHOP students.
Established in 2001, KHOP is a unique program that helps high potential college students who are either economically disadvantaged or part of the first generation of their families to attend college to prepare for the law school admissions process. In addition to providing mentoring and pre-law advising during the school year, the program takes eligible college juniors and seniors through two residential summer sessions in which they improve writing, logical reasoning, trial and appellate advocacy skills, and study techniques for taking the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), in addition to exploring career paths available to law school graduates. This year's summer session ran from July 7 to August 3.
"We've come a long way since that first summer in 2001 when this program was created in response to the critical need to find additional means to help diversify the California public law schools, and ultimately the legal profession," said Pinkney. "That first summer, we had just eight participants for two weeks. Today we have 31 students, a four-week residential component, a thriving academic year component, and a wonderful staff."
Pinkney thanked the many alumni who volunteered for KHOP as presenters, moot court and mock trial judges, and the KHOP teaching and law student staff. She also thanked King Hall staff members including Associate Director of Admissions and Outreach Kristen Mercado and Outreach Assistant Amanda Wilder for organizing the program and providing day-to-day oversight, and thanked Dean Johnson for his commitment to KHOP.
"Sustaining a program like KHOP, especially in these dire financial times, requires commitment, vision, and leadership," said Pinkney. "We're very lucky to have all of that in the form of a dean who has supported all of our outreach efforts in general and the KHOP program in particular. Dean Johnson has been very instrumental to the success of the KHOP program from the first two-week session up to today."
Dean Johnson thanked Downey Brand LLP and the Central Valley Foundation for their support of the KHOP program, and thanked John O'Malley '98 and Kevin O'Brien of Downey Brand and Susan McClatchy and Lauren Wolkov of the Central Valley Foundation for attending. He congratulated the KHOP students for their successful participation in the program, adding that he was impressed by their performances in the moot court and mock trials that closed the summer sessions. "The KHOP program is very special to me personally because the students in this program really are the future of the legal profession," he said.
Dean Johnson then introduced the Keynote Speaker, the Honorable Alberto Roldan '92, Chief Administrative Law Judge and Chief Executive of Field Operations for the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. Roldan praised the KHOP program, and spoke to the participants on the importance of building strong personal and professional relationships. "Your future success will be a combination of your past and present relationships combining with your personal efforts," he said. "The very fact that you've participated in a program like KHOP is a reflection of the fact that you understand that intrinsically."
The banquet ended with the presentation of participation certificates to all of the KHOP students and the presentation of peer-nominated awards to six outstanding KHOP participants: Hye Rim "Helen" Min (most encouraging senior), Patricia Boone (most inspirational senior), Sydnie Reyes (junior bridge builder), Elizabeth Rosales (most inspirational junior), Dilpreet Purewal (most encouraging junior), and Gorev Ahuja (senior bridge builder).