Fatima Rodriguez has been selected as the 2022 Alumni Rising ` Runner for the School of Social Sciences and Education. Each spring during Homecoming Week, the Rising Runner program recognizes CSUB alumni of the last 10 years who are already making an impact in their career and community.
Fatima Rodriguez was interested in a criminal defense career from an early age. Seeing friends with backgrounds similar to hers end up in the justice system – and thinking that could have been her – she recognized the need for strong representation of people like them.
But not until she took classes with CSUB Associate Professor Jeanine Kraybill and joined the university’s Pre-Law Society did Rodriguez actually see a plausible path to a legal career. Through Kraybill’s lectures, Rodriguez saw how a woman could command a room. Through the Pre-Law Society, she was introduced to law school recruiters and local attorneys who became mentors.
It all made possible what Rodriguez is doing today: serving on the Kern County Indigent Defense Panel. She represents people who cannot afford their own attorney and can’t be represented by the Public Defender’s office because it has a conflict of interest.
“I am here today because of everyone who has been helping me throughout my path,” Rodriguez said.
Kraybill says Rodriguez has done exactly what CSUB’s Pre-Law Society, and its umbrella Pre-Law Program, intends: Home-grow attorneys who will stay in or return to Kern County after law school to practice, whether criminal, civil, public interest, immigration or any other kind of law.
A whole host of people makes the Pre-Law Program possible: Faculty, staff, alumni, donors, volunteers and members of the CSUB Pre-Law Advisory Committee who give their time and money to the program. Kraybill couldn’t be prouder of Rodriguez’s rise.
“We need more women practicing law, more people of color practicing law,” Kraybill said. “Look at our students, look at our community, look at our state. We’re a majority-minority state and for people to have trust in the legal system, we need to have people who come from their backgrounds representing them.”