Ms. Brenda Ascencio is a third-year law student at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Law. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, with a minor in Sociology, from Pepperdine University. Ms. Ascencio aspires to utilize her law degree to assist immigrant families in navigating family-based and humanitarian immigration processes, drawing on her own experiences as a first-generation Mexican American to provide compassionate and effective advocacy. The HLSF scholarship will help ease the financial burdens of law school and cover bar exam preparation and application costs, so she can focus on preparing for the bar exam. This summer, she will take the Illinois bar exam and then begin her career as an associate at Valdez & Vilim, LLP.