BU1LT Board Members
BU1LT For Success Scholarship
The Story
BU1LT for Success Scholarship was founded in 2020 by Lakeyah Scales, a rising 3L at DePaul University College of Law. Impacted by her community involvement and personal experience as a first-year BIPOC law student, Lakeyah created the scholarship to give back to her community and help other BIPOC law students on their journeys.
Before entering law school, Lakeyah obtained a Bachelor of Science in Sociology in 2013 from the University of Illinois. She earned a Certificate of Paralegal Studies in 2014 from Roosevelt University and worked as a litigation paralegal for five years. She earned her Master of Jurisprudence in Child & Family Law in 2018 and began her Juris Doctor in 2019.
Lakeyah’s journey to become a lawyer was prompted by witnessing first-hand the lack of legal representation in the African American community. She also recognized the dire need for more skilled Black attorneys. As a 1L law student, she struggled to afford her textbooks each semester. She was forced to arbitrarily purchase the “most important books” and then copy the necessary readings from other students. With this scholarship, she aims to alleviate that financial stress from Black and POC 1L law students by purchasing their textbooks.
Lakeyah is currently the managing editor for the Journal for Social Justice and the teaching assistant for family law at DePaul University, a 2019-2020 Schiller DuCanto & Fleck Family Law Fellow, and a single mom to a beautiful five-year-old daughter. She will also complete her Juris Doctor in May 2022 at DePaul University College of Law.
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