Scholar Entries - Hispanic Lawyers Scholarship Fund of Illinois

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Are you a past recipient of an Hispanic Lawyers Scholarship Fund award?

Name

Zoey Machain

Current Mailing Address

zmachain0219@gmail.com
100 N Hermitage Ave
Chicago, IL 60612
United States
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If mailing address is temporary, expected date when current mailing address is no longer valid

05/31/2028

Permanent Address (only if different from Current Mailing Address)

1521 Pauline Cir
mundelein, IL 60060
United States
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Phone

(224) 385-6105

Connection to Illinois

I was born and raised in Illinois, and love the state for what it has afforded me and my family.

In what city do you intend to practice law upon graduation?

Chicago

Name of Law School

DePaul University College of Law

Class year

1st year law student

Full Time or Part Time Student?

Full Time

Date you began attending THIS law school

08/19/2025

Anticipated Graduation Date

05/25/2028

Current GPA

2.94

Name of Undergraduate Institution

University of Illinois at Chicago

Degree (BA, BSE, etc.) and Concentration/Major

BS in Physchology and Criminology, Law and Justice

Undergraduate Graduation Date

05/11/2025

GPA

3.8

Undergraduate Honors, Awards, or Special Recognitions

I earned Deans List every semester and graduated with honors (Magna Cum Laude).

Were you employed in 2025?

yes

If yes, please identify your employer(s).

I work at North Shore Country Club in Glenview, Illinois, as a server. I also worked at Bears Fit in Vernon Hills for the first half of 2025, and put in my two weeks before beginning law school.

What was your immediate family’s (including you and your spouse or domestic partner, if applicable) estimated income from all sources for the 2025 Tax Year?

85,0000

Do you expect to be employed in 2026?

yes

If yes, please identify your employer(s).

North Shore Country Club in Glenview, Illinois.

Please estimate your immediate family’s (including you and your spouse or domestic partner, if applicable) income from all sources for the 2026 Tax year

85,000

Please estimate your parent's average annual household income over the last five years

85,000

Do your parents own or rent their home? Please describe, if necessary

My mom owns her home.

Describe your parents' health insurance situation. Do they have employer-sponsored health insurance, health insurance through the exchange, or no health insurance?

My mom gets our health insurance through her job, and pays for it each month.

LIST below your total EXPENSES for attending law school for ONE YEAR (Please refer to example in FAQs)

Total Tuition Cost $

55,328

Books Cost $

1600

Fees Cost $

1668

Housing Cost $

12,000

Food Cost $

2400

Other Costs $ (describe)

175 (transportation)

Total Expenses $ (add above entries)

73,171

LIST below your total FUNDING sources you plan to use to pay for these expenses (Please refer to example in FAQs)

Student Loans $

42000

Scholarships and Grants $

15000

Work Study, if any $

Personal Contribution (Savings/Employment) $

16,171

Family Contribution $ (include parents, spouse, partner, etc.)

0 (my mom does cover my health insurance, dental, eye care etc)

Other Sources $ (describe)

Total Funding $ (add above entries)

73,171

For 2Ls and 3Ls, what is your current TOTAL loan debt from the previous law school years?

N/A

Please list any community service activities with which you have been involved in the last ten years, paying particular attention to activities in support of the Hispanic community. For each activity, please include the dates of your participation, a short description of the organization and the community they serve, and a description of the activity you performed to help them. (Please read FAQs before completing)

I volunteered on August 21st, 2025, to help clean up a community garden called Maxwell Community Garden in Chicago. I helped mostly pull weeds from all the plants, but I spent the day learning about the community as well. This neighborhood is composed of Hispanics and African Americans. The Garden was meant to keep kids out of trouble, especially considering that parents often worked multiple jobs to support their kids, often leaving them unsupervised. They host movie nights, and game days, and use the vegetables and plants they grow, and allow their community to take from them. They largely need volunteers, as many who plant at the community garden have trouble maintaining their areas. I know what it's like to have parents who work day and night to support me, and how much of my time was left unsupervised in the meantime. But my mom had continued to put me in after-school activities(even when she could not afford to), as well as the support my grandparents gave her when she couldn't. If I could help even some parents, like my own, struggling to support themselves and their own children, I think that would be a win.

Please provide a statement describing your background and focus your statement on your reasons for pursuing a legal career and your legal career goals. This statement is important. Please give it appropriate attention. (min. 1000 characters) (Please read FAQs before completing)

I grew up watching Law & Order: SVU with my mom, and afternoons with my Abuela were often spent in front of the TV, watching Caso Cerrado! I like to think that these moments sparked my interest in the criminal justice system. While the stories were dramatized, they reinforced a simple truth: justice was supposed to be served, just not always, or in the ways I expected. Sometimes there was no "happy ending." It was both frustrating and frightening to witness how the system failed, and I remember the overwhelming sense of injustice I felt after an episode. My mom would reassure me that the shows weren’t real and that I shouldn’t let them get to me. But as I grew up, the distinctive line between television drama and reality began to blur. The failures of the criminal justice and immigration systems became all too real in the news, and my desire to understand and change them only deepened.
The debilitating feeling of helplessness made me choose my path. When I decided I wanted to apply to law school, I had garnered an immense amount of support. I didn’t know whether I wanted to pursue criminal law or immigration law, but I know I want to do something to help people who the system consistently sweeps under the rug. My mom made it seem to be completely and totally within my realm of capabilities, regardless of her lack of higher education. Her unwavering faith in me, in my aspirations and career goals, ultimately put me in a position to not only dream but to believe. My mom is the most selfless, hard-working person I know. Her work ethic is as unmatched as her love for her children. She is the architect of the person I am today and is the sole person I hope to be someday honored enough to embody in the slightest. She is a first-generation Mexican American; my grandpa immigrated from Mexico. One of the greatest lessons she’s ever taught me is that hard work pays off, and everything is earned. She didn’t have it all figured out, but she earned it. She had my sister and me, ten months apart from each other, when she was just 16. Most people would not have been able to handle the difficulties that come with having two daughters so young. But she took it on the chin and kept working. My parents dropped out of high school to support us, and I never knew they struggled. My mom made magic in my childhood. She moved up within the ranks at her job, and all without a high school or college degree. She earned her family, her house, and her career.
While my mom moved mountains, my dad crossed what felt like the world. He was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who crossed the Mexican/American border when he was just 8 years old. He was limited on where he could work, but took jobs where he could, regardless of the long hours and low wages. He spent most of his time in fear that one wrong move would make it nearly impossible to see his family again. Then, that day came. My dad was pulled over while driving my mom’s car, without a license, and was detained. We were on our way home from sledding, and we drove separately. The police department called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who then spoke to my dad. They saw he had no criminal record and had been here since he was a child. They released him on the condition that he would begin his path to citizenship. So, my mom called an attorney.
Our attorney took every opportunity to help us and prepare us. I felt it then, the admiration for what this attorney had become for families like mine, a light in the dark. My dad became an American citizen 13 years later, and they had earned it. I jumped at every opportunity to earn everything and anything I could. I attended my local community college to save money and worked with my academic advisors to ensure all my classes would transfer to the accredited university, UIC, where I chose to transfer in my junior year. I worked tirelessly to save enough money to pay for my education in full. My parents’ eventual divorce led my mom to be the sole provider for my three siblings and me, which meant that my education was going to cost me and only me. I took every opportunity to work; I have been a server for almost 4 years at country clubs, as well as working at a local gym for two years to pick up shifts whenever I wasn’t scheduled. I am comfortable working long hours to afford the opportunity to continue my education whilst maintaining my position on the dean’s list every semester in college. I spent so much of my time training and communicating with many people from far different backgrounds than my own. I have mastered the skill of helping translate information to be more comprehensible for others, and I find that skill will only continue to be fostered in the future. I learned Spanish early on in my childhood and worked for years to be fluent, earning my seal of biliteracy on my high school diploma. Now, I am continuing my education in law school at DePaul University College of Law, in the hopes of someday being a light in the dark.
I have earned the ability to boast about my family and my work. I am proud of where my family and I come from. I am a product of their work, their bravery, and their strength. I am proud to be a First Generation Mexican American, especially in such tumultuous times, where simply appearing to be Hispanic is considered criminal. My family came here in hopes of a better life filled with opportunity for themselves and their children, and I intend to deliver. That is not criminal, that is the American dream.

Please upload a copy of your financial award letter labeled as follows: LastName.FirstName.FinAwardLtr*

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Machain.Zoey_.FinAwardLtr.pdf

Please upload a copy of your resume labeled as follows: LastName.FirstName.Resume*

Please upload a copy of your law school transcript labeled as follows: LastName.FirstName.LSTranscript*