Emily Hall, a 2021 alumna of the University of Houston Law Center.
June 22, 2021 - After obtaining her J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center in May, Emily Hall gained an added bonus as one of two recent alumni selected for the Mary K. Walker Memorial Scholarship. The prize is given to students who have accomplished academic excellence and are focused on a career in Health Law and Policy on behalf of faculty members who teach in the same area.
“I was so shocked when I received the scholarship,” Hall said. “It was completely unexpected. “My financial aid had finished, but I still have to take the bar exam in July, and I had two months that I had to financially get through that I was concerned about.”
The Mary K. Walker Memorial Scholarship is a one-time award that was designated by Walker in her will. Funds were to be allocated by a trustee and be specifically used for a scholarship either for student aid or for a professor’s work in the Health Law and Policy Program at the Law Center.
“We are deeply appreciative of the Walker family’s generosity,” said Professor Jessica Roberts, director of the Health Law and Policy Institute. “It allows us to recognize our outstanding health law students.”
Hall was independently selected without application by Health Law faculty and designated scholarships for her ambition.
“I am really amazed by the well-rounded health law education I received at the UHLC,” Hall said. “I found when I was interviewing for jobs in the health care field, I was ahead of the game because I already know fundamental health care laws and regulations right out of law school, unlike many practitioners, who had to learn health laws on the job.
“I was also able to apply the concepts I learned from my classes practically in the recent University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law’s 10th Annual Health Law Regulatory and Compliance Competition, where my teammates and I finished in second place.”
Hall interned with the Institutional Compliance Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, assisting with compliance issues related to information security, ethics, conflict of interest and corporate standards, and will join MD Anderson in August as an assistant legal officer for Privacy and Information Security Compliance in their Institutional Compliance Office.
“I am excited to join an academic medical center, and I hope to work in health policy in some facet in the future,” Hall said. “This scholarship is one more thing that is helping to make it happen.”
