Janet Ceron grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. She is the oldest of four daughters and the first in her family to graduate from high school and professional school. After attending public school in New York, she attended Barnard College on a full-tuition scholarship. That financial support allowed her to discover subjects she hadn’t previously considered. With the freedom to explore her academic interests, she wound up choosing a major she did not know existed: urban studies.
During college, Ceron met a lawyer at a recruiting event, which inspired her next steps. She worked in the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2016 to 2018, which sparked a further interest in direct client services. She next worked at the New York Legal Assistance Group, where she delved into consumer protection, special education, and employment issues affecting New Yorkers and worked under Danielle Tarantolo’s ’06 supervision. Seeing the positive impact the lawyers made in their clients’ lives inspired Ceron to apply to law school.
During her time at Yale Law School, she participated in the Environmental Protection and Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinics. She also worked as a research assistant for Deborah Archer ‘96, a professor at NYU Law. She has also been on the board of La Sociedad of Latine Law Students during all three years.
After graduation, Ceron will work at Arnold & Porter in New York City, a firm she chose because of its dedicated commitment to pro bono service. She will then clerk for Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York.
Ceron said that the Hurst Horizon Scholarship allowed her to think about financial planning differently. She could look beyond immediate needs to thinking about the future for her and her family. “The scholarship has enabled me to engage in financial planning to not only improve the lives of the generation to follow me, but also who came before me — my parents.” she said.
The program helps enable the diversification of the legal profession in a way that will benefit clients, Ceron said, because more lawyers will have a shared understanding of their clients’ lived experiences. “I’m still joining a profession where most practitioners do not look like me, let alone come from the socioeconomic background that I come from,” she said.
The cohort of Hurst Horizon Scholars at the Law School also provided an essential support system for each other. “It’s become a really supportive and important community to me here at YLS,” she said, adding that navigating law school can be difficult for someone from a working-class background. “It has enabled me to not only feel like I belong, but that I am entitled to be here.”
On Family
“Attending YLS and having my tuition paid has allowed me to prioritize a different type of financial planning, and not about how do I pay down this significant amount of debt? As someone who's the oldest of four daughters, the first in my family to graduate from high school, and I will now be the first to graduate from a professional school, I felt it was my duty to work and provide for my family.”
On Need-Based Aid
“When I was applying, I hadn't realized yet how expensive it would be to go to law school, and it wasn't until I started receiving offers of admission and financial aid awards that I realized. It felt like a no-brainer to select YLS because my tuition would be fully paid. And while I was a student, I would not have to worry about how I was going to finance my studies, and I could just be a student full-time. I could explore opportunities because they were interesting to me, not because they would compensate me or because they would allow me to continue to afford the next year and the following year.”
“I pursued opportunities here because of interest and curiosity. And I think how lucky am I to have had that freedom in law school because I wasn't worried about what were the experiences that I could do to train me to enter a particular profession that would compensate me very well. I didn't feel worried about graduating with a six-figure amount of debt.”
“I think having the Hurst Horizon Scholarship enabled me to really throw myself fully into clinical work and my studies without having to worry about how I was going to finance school or afford to live.”
Yale Law School and the Hurst Horizon Scholarship
“Attending a professional school with your tuition paid enables the diversification of the legal profession.”
“Some of my closest friends here are also Hurst Horizon Scholars. It has enabled me to not only feel like I belong, but like I'm entitled to be here. That’s actually a hard feeling for a lot of people who come from backgrounds like mine, a working-class background. I'm incredibly grateful for the Hurst community for being my anchors while I've been at YLS.”