Alumni

Opportunity Knocks

Samuel H. Sugarman scholarship allows daughter of Argentinian immigrants to pursue law school dream.

The one firm that responded was the Connell Law Firm, which was representing a defendant in one of the biggest felony murder cases the city had ever seen. Inspired by her experience at the small husband-and-wife firm, Mohedas set her sights on a career as a public defender and applied to BU Law, known for its top-notch Criminal Law Clinical Program.

She was working at a sandwich shop in Boulder, making bacon jam in the kitchen, when she got the thrilling news that she had been taken off the waitlist for admission.

But her excitement soon turned to worry as she crunched the financial numbers. The daughter of first-generation parents from Argentina didn’t want to take on more debt than she could handle on the relatively low salary she expected to earn. Making a 10-year commitment to public service in exchange for student loan forgiveness also felt daunting. The safer choice would have been attending a less expensive state school in Texas, near her parents’ home.

“So the admissions team told me, OK, stay tuned, you’re going to get a letter soon with our proposed solution to help you be able to go to BU,” she says. “And next thing I knew, I had an email with a scholarship that amounted to about half of my tuition, which was gigantic, and I never imagined that I would be able to get that.”

Mohedas received the Samuel H. Sugarman Memorial Scholarship. Created by brothers Paul Sugarman (’54) and Neil Sugarman (’65), the scholarship was designed to help those like Mohedas who could not otherwise afford to attend BU Law. It honors their father, Samuel, who never went to college but encouraged his sons to pursue their educations.

“It was pretty much the only reason that I was able to choose BU,” she says.

The scholarship also gave her the financial freedom to take advantage of clinical opportunities throughout law school.

As she watched many of her friends pursue paid summer associate positions at large law firms, Mohedas gained hands-on experience in her field by completing two unpaid summer internships. At Project Citizenship in Boston, she helped people with their citizenship applications for free. At Bronx Defenders, she provided free legal assistance to noncitizens facing deportation.

“It gave me very, very invaluable experience, especially when it came to my abilities to relate with my clients and create relationships with my clients,” she says. “There’s no class that can teach you how to help your clients that are in a very, very different circumstance than you’ve ever been in your life.”

Her BU Law internships also gave her a preview of the challenges of being a young woman of color in a white, male-dominated profession.

“When I walked into a courtroom, I was the only person that looked like me. Frankly, I’m often mistaken for an interpreter due to my ethnicity,” she says. “It’s not easy to have a judge mistake you for an interpreter and then immediately go on the record on behalf of your client and not let that rattle you.”

Yet at the nonprofits, she also found mentors who looked like her, who had overcome the same challenges and were making a difference for their clients. She also turned to Nancy Salomone, a state court judge in Boulder, for advice. Mohedas had met Salomone during her college internship and spent the following summer interning at Salomone’s then-criminal defense firm. These relationships helped sustain her when law school and law practice got tough. 

Meanwhile, her clinical professors at BU Law helped by preparing her for the courtroom and giving her the confidence to take on any challenge.

After graduation, she fulfilled her dream of becoming a public defender, joining the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office. But ultimately, she came to the difficult realization that it was not the right career for her. “Being a public defender is not for the faint of heart. It’s incredibly difficult,” she says. “Being a public defender who looks like me is even harder. Coming to the realization that [the job] was not a good fit for me was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make.”

She moved to a small criminal defense firm, where she continued to represent a Latinx client base. In February, she transitioned to a family law firm in Denver. She primarily handles divorce and custody cases.

Her BU Law training allowed her to pivot to a new practice area quickly. Many law students don’t realize that you will be expected to be fluent in your practice area on day one. “With the right foundation and the right confidence level, you’ll be able to do that just fine.”

Even though being a public defender wasn’t the right fit for her, Mohedas has no regrets about pursuing her dream. She would encourage other scholarship recipients to follow their own path and remember that their law degree will open up many diverse opportunities.

“It’s a massive accomplishment to go to law school, an even bigger accomplishment to go to a school like BU,” she says. “If you are lucky enough to receive financial help, it can take away a little bit of that stress and allow you to focus on studying and building relationships. You’re likely to meet a lot of people that will help you later in your career and that will teach you what kind of lawyer you want to be.”

This Series

A Leap of Faith

Also in

Impact

• October 31, 2023

  Forging His Own Path

• March 31, 2023

  Former Law Clerks Honor Judge Torruella by Funding a Memorial Scholarship

• January 25, 2022

  The Drama of Legal Ideas

Series home