Scholarship Supports Careers
His experience as a young lawyer advocating for some of the country’s poorest citizens has motivated a UConn alumnus to create an endowed scholarship that encourages legal careers in community service.
After law school, Mark S. Rudy ’66 (CLAS) joined the Volunteers In Service To America (VISTA) program and found himself working in the struggle to have New Orleans hospitals admit poor, uninsured residents.
At the time, private hospitals were turning away patients without insurance, forcing them to go to charity hospitals. Partly through Rudy’s work, a consent decree was put into effect that alleviated the disparity in care for the uninsured.
“It was an opportunity to use my background to do very rewarding work,” he says. “When it was done, I was enthused by what I had committed to public service.”
Today, Rudy is a partner in the San Francisco employment law firm of Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff, LLP. He was recently ranked as both one of the top 500 judges and mediators in America and one of the top five plaintiff employment lawyers in Northern California. He says the need for the legal profession to commit to public service is as great as ever.
“Lawyers have a responsibility to perform some pro bono work, but for a long time it was not emphasized. For a good part of the 1980s and 1990s, the focus was on salary,” he says.
“I think we have a more enlightened generation today. They can see what’s going on and how people are not getting the services they need. Government funding has not kept up with the need, and the gap’s being filled by nonprofits.”
To encourage potential lawyers to pursue community service, Rudy has endowed the Mark S. Rudy Scholarship Fund for undergraduates in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences who intend to study law and have a serious interest in providing legal services to the disadvantaged. He recently met the first recipients of his scholarship.
“I was very encouraged and very impressed with these bright students,” he says. “They’re committed to service, and I felt that my scholarship was going to have an impact.”
Rudy says the experience of pro bono work has always made a large impact on him, and he hopes that spirit stays alive in the next generation of attorneys.
“There’s a tremendous opportunity for young lawyers to help people in their communities,” he says. “You can balance service with a career. What you get back is tremendous in terms of gratitude and satisfaction. Every time I help someone, I feel that I’m improving the quality of their life.”
“We all have an opportunity to help those who need it, and I hope that with the scholarship, I’ve motivated some students to do just that.”
For information about one of the recipients of the Mark S. Rudy Scholarship Fund, please click here.
To support the Mark S. Rudy Scholarship Fund, please contact Frank Gifford, director of development for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, at 860.486.6798.
