Spring 2026 Winner of the Hope and Opportunity Scholarship

Rosaline Phillips

Rosaline Phillips is an aspiring lawyer currently studying at Northern Illinois University College of Law. As someone who grew up in foster care, Rosaline now pours herself into community service focusing on the local youth and provides free legal services to low income families through the DeKalb County Public Defender’s Office.

Read Their Essay Here:

The hardest part of foster care wasn’t a single incident, it was learning to speak up when I felt invisible. As a kid from Milwaukee’s 53206, I often sat in rooms where adults discussed my future in the third person. I was present, but decisions seemed to pass over me. That feeling, being there but unheard, became the specific challenge I had to overcome.

At first, I stayed quiet. I worried that asking questions would make me a problem or, worse, cost me stability I didn’t control. Over time, I realized silence had a cost, too: it kept me from understanding the choices shaping my life. The turning point was simple but meaningful, I began preparing for every meeting. I wrote down questions, practiced what I wanted to say, and made sure I could explain what I needed in clear, calm language. I didn’t always get the answer I wanted, but I left those rooms knowing I had used my voice.

That practice, preparing, showing up, speaking respectfully but firmly, changed me. It built habits I still rely on: organization under pressure, plain-spoken communication, and the courage to advocate even when the room feels bigger than you are. It also sparked my commitment to service. I joined the military because I wanted family, structure, accountability, and the chance to stand up for others the way I had learned to stand up for myself. The Army gave me discipline, teamwork, and the habit of listening to every voice at the table, skills that were translated directly into my next calling.

Today I’m a second-year law student at Northern Illinois University College of Law. I made the Dean’s List both 1L semesters and currently rank 31/117, but the measure that matters most to me is impact. Since January 2025 I’ve worked, unpaid and for no credit, at the DeKalb County Public Defender’s Office, serving low-income clients. I also invest in my home community: volunteering in Milwaukee and building a youth legal-education “Impact Project” for the North Side so young people learn practical rights before a crisis. The thread from foster care to the courtroom is clear: make sure the person most affected is heard.

Being a foster kid is a big reason I’m pursuing law. I want to become a public defender in Cook County and mentor kids who are navigating the same mix of uncertainty and hope I knew well. Many won’t have a label like “foster care,” but they will face the same realities, poverty, instability, complicated family situations. My promise is to bring the voice I fought to find into every space I enter: to ask the questions, insist on clarity, and keep people at the center of decisions about their lives. That challenge made me an advocate; the law gives me a way to turn that growth into service. Foster care didn’t end my story; it taught me how to write it, and now, how to help others write theirs.

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