Three students of the School of Information at San José State University received 2019 Southern California Association of Law Libraries (SCALL) Scholarships: Havilah Steinman, Rachel Galindo, and Jimmy Pak.

The SCALL Scholarship is open to residents of Southern California who are current members of the association. Its scholarship selection committee seeks out exceptional students who hold promise of future involvement in the law library profession, and weighs the financial need, personal statements, academic achievements, and recommendations of students in determining the winners. In 2019, three of the four SCALL scholarship recipients were iSchool students. The total scholarship amount awarded was $4,800.

“I was honored to be named among the recipients for this year’s SCALL scholarship!” said Steinman, who credits winning the scholarship with her time at the iSchool and a strong connection to her professors, who encouraged her to pursue the path to law librarianship.

“I recently completed INFO 244 Legal Resources with Vicki Steiner, and that experience was the catalyst for me to apply. The class reframed my perspective on my work experience and showed me how it could translate to the law librarianship profession.”

Steinman, who earned her paralegal certificate from University of California San Diego in 2010 and has worked in personal injury, family law, and antitrust law before starting the Master of Library and Information Science degree program at the iSchool, said she hopes to end up in a library where she can teach instructional sessions alongside her other responsibilities. “My time in INFO 254 Information Literacy and Learning, as well as working as a peer mentor, opened my eyes to my passion for serving my community in that way specifically,” she said.

Galindo, who works as a public services assistant at the law library of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, attended the SCALL Institute in Santa Barbara after winning the scholarship. She chronicled her trip in an article for the SCALL newsletter, describing how she found it an opportunity to spend time with her colleagues away from the office, network with other motivated people in the field, and experience law librarianship at a professional level.

Pak, SCALL Scholarship recipient who received his Juris Doctorate from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 2012, works at the Riverside County Law Library as a legal reference and instructional law librarian while pursuing his MLIS at the iSchool.

A JD is not necessary to work in the field, and the majority of law library jobs don’t require both an MLIS and a JD. Some positions however, especially reference positions like Pak’s, list it as a desired qualification.

Many SCALL Scholarship recipients go on to careers in law or academic libraries, some while concurrently obtaining their MLIS degree. Law librarians may be government information librarians, legal catalogers, web design experts, information resources managers, research specialists, competitive intelligence analysts, and many other job titles and areas of specialization within law librarianship.

SCALL’s members number more than 300 librarians and information professionals from academic, private, state, and county law libraries in the Southern California area. The association sponsors an annual institute, has over 20 committees, and runs a listserv.

For more information about the SCALL Scholarship visit the scholarship web page.