At Kitchel Injury Law, one of our core values is Impact. Our Washington, D.C., personal injury lawyers are committed to not just improving the lives of our clients, but to the idea that our work should make an impact in our community.
We see that the immigrant community in Washington, D.C., Arlington, Alexandria, and Northern Virginia at large is under attack. We are not immigration lawyers, but the world needs more of them. We want to help make that a reality in our community. That’s why Kitchel Injury Law is proud to debut its Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship.
The Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship promises $2,500 to one undergraduate student and $5,000 to one law student intent on becoming an immigration lawyer. Undergraduate and law students intent on pursuing a plan to become immigration attorneys have until February 1, 2026, to complete scholarship essays going into detail about their ambitions and motivations.
Eligibility Requirements
If you’re interested in applying for the Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship, make sure you meet the qualifying criteria. This scholarship is open to law-school-focused undergraduates and law students pursuing a law degree who intend to practice immigration law in the Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia areas.
Students must attend an accredited college, university, and/or law school in the United States and agree to the scholarship’s terms and conditions to qualify for the Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship. Students who apply without meeting these criteria or who fail to submit all necessary application materials will not be considered for the scholarship.
How Do I Apply?
Students who meet the qualifying criteria should complete an essay that meets the standards outlined below while answering Kitchel Injury Law’s scholarship essay question. Students should then upload a copy of their scholarship essay as a PDF along with the application form on this page by February 1, 2026, to qualify for the Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship.
Students should specifically save their essays in the following format: “[Scholarship Name and Year] – [Student Name].”
Scholarship Essay Topic
When applying for the Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship, please draft an essay of no more than 1,000 words answering the following questions:
- Why do you want to become an immigration lawyer?
- What drives you to study immigration law?
Each essay should be original to its applicant and include a catchy, original title as well as a bibliography and citations, as appropriate. Students should also include:
- The student’s full name
- The name of the institution a student attends/intends to attend
- The mailing address, email address, and phone number of that institution’s financial aid office
- Their connection to the DMV area
Please ensure all materials submitted to the scholarship selection committee are original. The inappropriate use of AI to generate a scholarship essay for the Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship will see a student’s application removed from consideration.
Scholarship Deadline
Kitchel Injury Law will accept applications for the Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship until February 1, 2026. The scholarship selection committee will not consider applications submitted after this deadline passes or applications submitted without all of their necessary materials.
The team may take up to three months to choose its scholarship winners. Please do not contact Kitchel Injury Law with questions about a student’s application during this time frame.
Terms and Conditions
All applicants to this scholarship must meet the eligibility requirements as laid out on the scholarship application page, including:
- Applicant must be enrolled in a college or law school
- Applicant must be at least 18 years old at the time of enrollment
- Applicant must have residency in the United States
- Applicant must be in good academic standing
- Applicant must submit some personal information, including name, contact information, and academic information
- Applicant must author an original essay on the scholarship topic provided
Anyone who meets the following conditions is NOT eligible to apply:
- Employees or children of employees of Kitchel Injury Law
- Past recipients of the Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship
- Applicants who are unable/unwilling to be interviewed by a representative of Kitchel Injury Law if they were to be awarded a scholarship
- Applicants who submit the same essay for multiple scholarships or multiple years in a row
Selection & Award Notification Process
The scholarship selection committee with Kitchel Injury Law must receive a student’s application before February 1, 2026, if the student wants to be considered for an award. Likewise, an application must include all requested materials to move forward.
If an application packet meets all of these criteria, the scholarship selection committee will review it and compare it against other applications. The team reserves up to three months after the scholarship’s closing deadline to select its winners, at which point it will contact those winners via email.
Age, race, religion, gender, national origin, familial status, or other protected classes will have no influence on the committee’s decision.
Winner Notification
Unfortunately, the team with Kitchel Injury Law cannot email every student who applies for the Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship. The team will only communicate with its winning students.
We ask that neither students nor their families contact the firm requesting updates on the status of a student’s application or asking why they did not receive the Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship. Due to legal reasons and the high volume of applications we receive, we cannot answer these questions at this time.
The winning students will receive word about their award via email, after which point Kitchel Injury Law will publish a blog post and press release celebrating their achievements. The firm will then mail the students’ winnings directly to their academic institutions of choice.
Previous Winners
The team with Kitchel Injury Law looks forward to uplifting its scholarship winners here at a later date. Check back in to read blog posts and press releases about Defending Voices Without a Voice Scholarship recipients.