Kimberly Waldin '15, was awarded The New York Bar Foundation Judge S. Bernard Meyer Scholarship for the 2014-15 academic year.

Established in 2004 by the law firm Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, P.C., where Judge Meyer had practiced and been a senior partner prior to his appointment and after his services, this scholarship is awarded to a law school student who displays excellence in legal writing and advocacy skills and the topic is relative to the law every year.

Waldin, a native of Ballston Spa, N.Y., received her B.A. in Theatre from Russell Sage College in Troy, N.Y., in 1998. Prior to enrolling in Albany Law, Waldin served as an education consultant with the New York State Theatre Institute for 15 years, where she taught performing arts and technical theatre classes to children ages three to 16, mentored new faculty and interns, and met with members of the assembly to discuss the benefits of arts education.

Her scholarship-winning paper "Trash: Getting Rid of Unwanted Children through 'Private Re-Homing'," written for Professor Anthony Farley's course on International Child Rights, discusses the recent discovery and media attention to the phenomenon of Americans advertising their children, mostly foreign adopted children, as unwanted through social media. The paper specifically focuses on the ways children's rights were violated using the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child as a basis for discussion, and recommends a Department of Justice program that could potentially be expanded to help put a stop to rehoming. 

“I have always been drawn to issues that affect children, so the course was very appealing, and tackling a difficult topic such as rehoming to help keep attention on the issue and offer a potential solution was important to me” said Waldin of her work.