Denise Peterson ’10 has taken the skills they honed at STCL Houston and built Peterson ADR, a successful civil mediation and arbitration practice. Additionally, Peterson founded and serves as the executive director of Texas Volunteer Mediator Association, an access to justice nonprofit organization that provides discounted legal services using online platforms.
Engaged with and supportive of alumni fundraising events at South Texas, Peterson, who identifies as genderqueer, saw a need to create space and financial support for transgender students. This prompted the creation of the Peterson-Hewitt Scholarship fund at STCL Houston, which is the first of kind.
Beginning with the 2022-23 academic year, $5,000 is available to the pool of students who apply. Important and unique to this scholarship is an anonymity clause. Recipients will not be identified or publicly recognized, unless they wish it. There is also no minimum GPA requirement for this scholarship.
Recently, Peterson answered a few questions about the gift.
What inspired you to make this generous contribution for a scholarship to help offset costs of law school for transgender individuals?
There is no more powerful voice for justice and equality than the authentic voices of a community. My responsibility and privilege as a trans ally is to raise those voices.
How important is it for transgender individuals to be better represented in the legal profession?
Attorneys are there for people during some of the worst days of their lives. We are there when they are accused of a crime, when a loved one has been lost or injured, at the failure of a marriage, when a business fails, when facing deportation, and in those moments we are not just their advocates, we are their source of hope that things will get better. To be able to be that advocate and counselor, we must understand their lives. One of the reasons that diversity and inclusion is so important is to understand people’s experiences, especially those that are different from our own. The trans community disproportionately suffers from systemic discrimination, and better representation in the legal profession only helps rectify that disparity.
