Michael Best Announces 2021 Diversity Scholarship Winners

Michael Best is pleased to announce the 2021 recipients of the Michael Best Diversity & Inclusion Scholarship, given to Samantha Contreras, and the Michael Best University of Wisconsin Law School Diversity & Inclusion Scholarship, bestowed to Mason Higgins and Veronica Mantilla.

The two scholarships are hallmarks of the firm’s long-standing diversity, equality, and inclusion efforts that provide opportunities and programming to help make the legal community and Michael Best a more inclusive culture and environment.

The UW-Madison Diversity & Inclusion Scholarship is a collaboration between Michael Best and the University that began in 2017 and is given out to a second-year law student at the institution. Three past recipients of the scholarship have joined the firm full-time, with the fourth starting in the fall of 2021.

At UW-Madison, both Higgins and Mantilla are involved in several organizations. Mantilla is part of the university’s Latinx Lawyer Association, Women’s Law Student Association, and the Society for Education and Law Policy. She has also worked as a Law Clerk for Alliant Energy in Madison Wisconsin. Higgins is involved in several organizations on campus as well, including the Black Law Students Association, UW Mock Trial, and The Criminal Court Appeals Project. He has also worked as a Law Clerk for Krekeler Strother, S.C. in Madison, Wisconsin.

This is the inaugural year for the Michael Best Diversity & Inclusion Scholarship, launched as a result of the successes of the aforementioned scholarship. This too is available to second year law students, but open to any ABA-accredited law school in the country. This year’s recipient, Samantha Contreras, hails from the University of Notre Dame Law School.

Contreras is the Vice President of the Hispanic Law Student Association and the Admissions Liaison to the Black Law Students Association at Notre Dame and works directly with admissions to help find prospective members for both groups.

All three will be receiving tuition assistance for their third year of law school and the opportunity to participate in the Michael Best’s Summer Associate Program.