SCALE® Program
Change doesn't scare Ann Hendrix. She has worked a variety
of jobs, from bartender to legal receptionist to bread shop proprietor and
lived throughout the United
States. Now she relishes the roles of law
student and proud Angeleno.
She credits her periodic yearlong moves to the United Kingdom
during her childhood for feeding her curiosity about the world. Born and raised
primarily in Charleston, South
Carolina, Hendrix said those stints in London during the early 1980s punk scene opened
her eyes to "a whole different world of people and ideas."
Hendrix earned a B.A. in Sociology from Temple University
and a Masters in Industrial and Labor Relations from the University of Wisconsin,
where she graduated at the top of her class and received the Melvin Lurie
Memorial Prize for academic excellence.
When her husband wanted to move from Philadelphia to L.A. in 2004, she was gung ho. She took a job as a contract recruiter and eventually became an HR specialist for AIG, one of the largest insurance companies in the world.
But after years of experience working in human resources,
Hendrix was ready to exit from the corporate world and redirect her career. "In
HR there's a misguided notion that you're a liaison to help the employees, but
the bottom line is that you work for the company because they sign your
paycheck," she said. "I was always inclined to pick the employees' side."
Hendrix decided to go to law school, and Southwestern was her
first choice. "For me it was an easy decision. I was so excited to find a
two-year program. I'm an older student, and I'm very focused."
Although the SCALE program demands an intense commitment, Hendrix has
excelled, winning Second Place Writer in the 2007 SCALE Moot Court
competition, earning a spot on the 2007-2008 Law Review, and working to
re-establish the Labor and Employment Law Club with her fellow SCALE II
classmates, Joshua Buck and Colleen Armstrong. She finds time to mix her
human resources experience with her legal education, volunteering weekly at the
Workers' Rights Clinic in El Monte. There, she helps prepare wage claims,
unemployment appeals, and expungement petitions for criminal records with minor
offenses.
"I'm really hoping to go into employment plaintiff litigation. My
passion is for wronged employees," she said. "Work affects everybody. I see it
at the clinic, and I saw it in my own experiences. People spend so many hours of
their life at work that it's important to me to know that people are being
treated well."
