NFALA Foundation Scholarships

2023 LAW STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

OVERVIEW

NFALA Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization that works closely with the National Filipino American Lawyers Association (NFALA) to cultivate a pipeline of leaders through scholarship and financial aid to students interested in the legal profession, as well as spearheading fundraising efforts to support these programs.

This year, NFALA Foundation will grant financial aid to individuals who are (a) registered law students in the United States and (b) members of NFALA or any of its regional affiliates or affinity networks, or who have demonstrated prior or current service in the Filipino-American community.

NFALA Foundation law student grants are made available to students who are currently enrolled in their Juris Doctor (J.D.), Master of Laws (LL.M.), or Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) at an accredited U.S. law school.

NFALA Foundation strongly encourages applications from applicants reflecting diverse cultural and experiential backgrounds, people with disabilities and of diverse ethnic, racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds, work experiences, national origins, sexual orientations and ages.

AVAILABLE SCHOLARSHIPS

NFALA Foundation will award this year the following scholarships:

• Raymond L. Ocampo Jr. Family Scholarship – one award of $10,000
• NFALA President’s Annual Scholarship – one award of $3,000
• NFALA LGBTQ+ Scholarship – award(s) of $2,000 to $4,000

Law Students: Click Here to Download the 2023 NFALA Foundation Scholarship Application

THE RAYMOND L. OCAMPO JR. FAMILY SCHOLARSHIP

In 2020, the NFALA Foundation established the Raymond L. Ocampo Jr. Family Scholarship.  In 2023, a grant in the amount of $10,000 will be awarded to a law student who has demonstrated exceptional aptitude for the study of law and a strong commitment to serve or contribute to the Filipino American community as a future leader in the legal profession.  

RAYMOND L. OCAMPO JR. is the principal founder of FBANC and the President and CEO of Samurai Surfer LLC, a private investment company. He retired as Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary of Oracle Corporation in 1996, where he served as its chief counsel for more than a decade after the company’s initial public offering. He is a trailblazer as the first Asian Pacific American (APA) general counsel of a company to become a Fortune 500 company and is the first APA general counsel of a company that is a current (2021) Fortune 500 company.

In 1997, Mr. Ocampo co-founded and served for two years as Executive Director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, which led to the school’s ranking by US News & World Report as the country’s #1 IP Law program for 21 of the past 23 years.  Before joining Oracle Corporation in 1986, Mr. Ocampo was a lawyer in private practice with firms in San Francisco, where he focused on antitrust and complex litigation for more than 10 years. He also served as an adjunct professor of law at Hastings College of the Law from 1977-82, where he taught trial practice, professional responsibility, and legal writing. He received his undergraduate degree from UCLA in 1973 and his law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley in 1976.

After his retirement from Oracle Corporation until 2015, Mr. Ocampo was a private investor and served on the boards of more than two dozen public and private companies and nonprofit organizations, including the Asian Pacific Fund, a San Francisco community foundation that he chaired from 2006-2010. His philanthropic work includes annual scholarships and internships he has provided to FBANC since 2000, AABA since 2003, and NFALA Foundation since 2020.

Mr. Ocampo has been active with the American Bar Association, where he was Chair of the Section of Science & Technology Law and served as a member of the Commission on Women in the Profession and the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession. He was a member of the ABA Task Force on Gender Equity, a past Chair of the Computer Litigation Committee of the Section of Litigation, and a past member of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, the ABA Journal board of editors, and the Standing Committee on Publishing Oversight. He is a 2010 recipient of the ABA’s Spirit of Excellence Award for his work in increasing diversity in the legal profession.

Mr. Ocampo is the author of Surfing the Law & Technology Tsunami (American Bar Association 2001), a collection of keynote addresses on the intersection of law and technology, and co-author with Shelley Curtis and John Moss of Negotiating and Drafting Software Consulting Agreements (Glasser LegalWorks 1996), the leading work in its field.

Mr. Ocampo is an avid athlete who competed on behalf of the Philippines at the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary, Canada in men’s luge. In 2010 he served as an honorary captain of the U.S. Olympic Luge Team that competed in Vancouver, Canada. He regularly completed marathons in the 1970s before long-distance running became wildly popular. He and his wife are on a current 10-year streak of finishing the Honolulu Marathon together. One of his fondest memories is being a member of a state championship basketball team in high school. Mr. Ocampo has spent much of his post-retirement time learning a wide range of ballroom and Latin dances. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, he could often be found at a milonga, where Argentine tango is danced. He looks forward returning to the dance floor.

NFALA President’s Annual Scholarship

The NFALA President’s Annual Scholarship is sponsored through the generous donation of the National Filipino American Lawyers Association in support of NFALA Foundation’s mission. NFALA Foundation scholarship awards are given to law students who demonstrate exceptional aptitude for the study of law and strong commitment to serve or contribute to the Filipino American and AAPI communities as future leaders in the legal profession. 

NFALA LGBTQ+ Scholarship

The NFALA LGBTQ+ Scholarship is sponsored by the NFALA LGBTQ+ Affinity Network through the kind donations received in the past years and most especially during NFALAGanza!, the pride-themed celebration of the NFALA LGBTQ+ Affinity Network. The scholarship will be awarded to law student(s) who has demonstrated the most dedicated commitment to the advancement of the LGBTQ+ community.

Government and Public Interest Law Student Scholarship

The inaugural NFALA Government and Public Interest Scholarship is sponsored by the NFALA Government and Public Sector Lawyers Affinity Network. The scholarship will be awarded in the spring to a law student who will be working in Government, Public Sector, or Public Interest during the Summer 2023. The scholarship will be awarded to a law student who has a demonstrated commitment to public service and working to empower and support the AAPI and Filipino-American communities.

2024 applications will be made available in Spring of 2024. Please see the complete list of requirements in the application form, including proof of summer employment in Government, Public Sector, or Public Interest.

2022 Scholarship Recipients

Raymond L. Ocampo Jr. Family Scholarship

Danielle Ocampo (Loyola Law School, Los Angeles '23)

 Danielle Ocampo is currently a Legal Intern at Indeed.com supporting the Legal Data Privacy and Cybersecurity and Legal Product teams. Danielle was previously a Privacy Legal Intern at Intuitive Surgical Inc. in Sunnyvale, CA. With her interest in privacy and cybersecurity law from these internship experiences, Danielle became a student member within the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Danielle’s previous legal intern roles include working with the Legal teams at Webtoon, a South Korean digital comics platform, and Edwards Lifesciences, a medical device company. Prior to law school, Danielle was a part-time Business and Administrative Professional at Bayer’s agricultural tech arm The Climate Corporation. Before venturing into the Technology sector, Danielle was a Business Development Coordinator at the multinational law firm Paul Hastings LLP in the Bay Area where she advanced the business initiatives of the Employment Law practice and chaired the Asian affinity network for the Palo Alto office. Danielle joined Paul Hastings in 2017 as a Business Development Intern at the firm’s Los Angeles headquarters. During this time, Danielle was also a full-time graduate student at the University of Southern California School of Public Policy where she earned her Master of Public Administration degree. Danielle graduated from the University of California Davis cum laude in 2016 with a B.A. double majoring in Political Science and International Relations and with a minor in Managerial Economics.

Danielle is an NFALA, FBANC, and PABA student member. During her first two years of law school, Danielle committed herself to serving as Program Director for the National Federation of Filipino American Associations’ (NaFFAA) national youth leadership development and strongest initiative Empowering Pilipino Youth through Collaboration (EPYC). Danielle is passionate about building the pipeline of Fil-Am talent, especially within the legal profession. Through her continued service to the Fil-Am community, Danielle works to increase visibility of Fil-Ams in professional and community spaces.

NFALA President's Annual Scholarship Recipient

Emlyn Medalla (City University of New York School of Law '23)

 Emlyn Dy-cok Medalla is Bisaya and Bicolana, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She is the daughter of a former nurse and a former sea-based Filipino worker, and is dedicating her career to the Filipinos of New York that raised her. Emlyn attends CUNY School of Law where she is learning how to be a public interest lawyer. She hopes to use her law degree to support Filipinos who have been exploited and harmed under the Labor Export Policy in the Philippines and trafficked in the United States. Emlyn is also a member of Malaya Movement, a grassroots organization of Filipino Americans focused on human rights issues in the Philippines. Some of Emlyn’s hobbies include dance and collecting Marvel comic books with Filipina character Pearl Pangan aka Wave.

NFALA LGBTQ+ Scholarship

Fay Pao (Lincoln Law School of Sacramento '23)

 Fay Pao is a fourth-year evening law student at Lincoln Law School of Sacramento. For most of their first three years of law school, Fay worked as a full-time Litigation Paralegal at a private civil litigation firm in Sacramento while attending law school in the evenings. In 2021, Fay re-founded Lambda Law Student Association at Lincoln Law School with the goals of increasing the visibility of LGBTQ+ legal professionals and connecting students with professional opportunities. As Vice President, Fay coordinated meetings and organized Lincoln's first formal networking event since the Pandemic in early 2022. As the current Lincoln Lambda President, Fay took their efforts a step further by partnering with the Sacramento County Public Law Library to establish Lincoln’s first legal clinic. This clinic is geared to providing free public assistance in completing legal name changes and gender recognition forms. Fay now works as a full-time Legal Analyst with the California Civil Rights Department as they finish their last year of law school and prepare to take the California Bar.

Danicole Sakay Ramos (William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa '23)

 Danicole Ramos is from Waialua, Hawai‘i. He serves as Military Equal Opportunity Officer in the Hawai‘i Air National Guard, working to implement policies for equal opportunity and treatment for all service members. During his time in law school, he served as summer law clerk and extern for The Legal Clinic, a non-profit providing free legal services forlow-income immigrants. He also did pro-bono work for his law school’s Refugee and Immigration Clinic on asylum cases. Before law school, Danicole has worked in various careers in the non-profit and government, as a legislative aide in the Hawai‘i State Legislature, a climate change policy analyst at Elemental Excelerator, and administrative coordinator for United We Dream, America’s largest immigrant youth-led network based in Washington D.C. He currently serves as the Board President of Faith Action Hawai‘i and sits on the board for Halau Nohana Hawai‘i, a D.C. Based Hawaiian Cultural School. He attended Seattle University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Seattle University and earned a Master of Public Administration from American University. After law school, Danicole plans to work as an immigration attorney with a focus on serving immigrant veterans and active service members.