The scholarship will go to Richard Brennan, a law school applicant devoted to helping disabled people navigate the legal system.
RUTHERFORDTON, NORTH CAROLINA / ACCESS Newswire / March 27, 2025 / Florida State University graduate Richard Brennan has won the 2024 Farmer & Morris Law, PLLC, Volunteer Service Scholarship. The $2,500 scholarship is awarded annually to a law school student or applicant who has performed volunteer work in their community.
Volunteering Empowered Brennan to Change Lives - and Changed His Own
In his award-winning essay and winner questionnaire, Brennan cites personal experiences as his motivation for applying to law school. After sustaining life-altering injuries in a drunk driving crash at just six years old, he was able to excel in school thanks to support from his mother and from medical professionals paid for through Medicaid.
"As I grew older, I developed a deep appreciation of the importance of accessible support systems and a budding realization of inequity in healthcare outcomes," Brennan writes in his essay.
This realization inspired him to give back to the community through volunteer work. He began preparing and serving meals at Ronald McDonald House, where he witnessed the "power" in "coming together... to ease the burden for a total stranger."
Seeing the impact of his volunteer work solidified Brennan's determination to pursue a legal career that would enable him to provide even more help to families like those he met at Ronald McDonald House.
Law School Is the Next Step on Brennan's Journey to Empower Others
After graduating college in the spring of 2023, Brennan was hired by Liebenhaut Law as a paralegal. In this position, he realized that, like Medicaid, Social Security benefits were not always as accessible as they should be.
"[N]avigating safety net programs like Social Security Disability and Supplemental Security Income can be technical and confusing," Brennan writes-a reality he plans to use his $2,500 Volunteer Service Scholarship to help change.
Volunteering showed Brennan "what I will be fighting for," while his work as a paralegal and graduating from law school will allow him to work toward a future "where other children can have a positive outcome like I did regardless of their socioeconomic status."
To do this, he plans on becoming a Social Security Disability attorney, opening his own practice, and providing "concise, practical insights that empower my clients to make the most informed decisions."
Brennan was recently accepted to Stetson University College of Law, though he has not yet decided which law school he will attend. He plans to begin his studies in the fall 2025 semester with, as he puts it, a firm "commitment to be a champion for my future clients in a way that reflects the selflessness and generosity this scholarship represents."
About the Volunteer Service Scholarship
Farmer & Morris Law, PLLC, has awarded the Volunteer Service Scholarship annually since 2021. While the scholarship helps individual law students, it also strengthens entire communities by providing financial resources to future lawyers who are devoted to uplifting others through volunteerism and legal representation.
Farmer & Morris Law, PLLC, is a law firm based in North and South Carolina that offers a wide range of legal services.
Contact Information
Andrea Farmer
Attorney
afarmer@farmerlegal.com
828-286-3866
SOURCE: Farmer & Morris Law, PLLC
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire
