Two UCC School of Law students, Aoife Nazneen Nurul Khasri and Ruth Fu Dong, have each received a scholarship worth €5,000 and a work-placement opportunity with leading law firm RDJ.

The two were recently awarded RDJ Diversity Scholarships, which aim to encourage diversity in the legal profession by supporting students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds who are studying law at UCC.

RDJ has donated €40,000 over four years for the scholarships, which will be awarded to two UCC School of Law students each year.

This year’s recipients were chosen after a competitive selection process based on exam results, a personal statement, a 1,000-word essay on ‘The Need for Diversifying the Legal Profession in Ireland’, and an interview.

Role models

The students were officially awarded their scholarships at UCC on Friday, 16 September by Richard Martin (RDJ managing partner) and Professor Mark Poustie (Dean of the UCC School of Law).

Martin said that his firm believed that there was a need to go beyond diversity policies and aspirations.

“This is why we are awarding these scholarships; they are about us trying to do something meaningful to encourage more ethnic diversity in the legal profession,” he stated.

Prof Poustie said that the key benefit of this scholarship was the internship element, which “opens the door to opportunity” for the winners, who could then serve as role models to encourage more from ethnically diverse backgrounds to enter the legal profession.