Applications for the McWilliams Family Law Scholarship are being accepted at the guidance offices at Litchfield High School and Hillsboro High School or through each school's website application process. Deadline for application is April 15.
The McWilliams Family Law Scholarship was established in 2005 by members of the J. Bert and Jane (White) McWilliams family to aid students in the pursuit of a law degree.
The scholarship has a value of $1,000 and will be awarded during scholarship presentations at the high school from which the applicant graduated. Scholarship funds can be used toward tuition, books, fees, and room and board of the law student.
Applicants must be a graduate of either Litchfield High School or Hillsboro High School, now graduating from college with proof of acceptance to an accredited law school; or a Litchfield High School or Hillsboro High School graduate currently enrolled in an accredited law school, with plans to continue, uninterrupted, his/her law schooling.
Applicants must have resided in Montgomery County for at least four years prior to their high school graduation.
An applicant must present an essay detailing his/her interest in pursuing a career in law, any special circumstances that might be of interest in making the award, and/or progress the applicant has made if he/she is already enrolled in law school.
An official transcript from the applicant's college or law school is required.
The McWilliams family name has been associated with lawyers in Montgomery County for generations, starting with Maj. Robert McWilliams, who, following the Civil War, started the practice of law in the late 1860s, first in Hillsboro and later in Litchfield.
In the late 1890s his son, Paul McWilliams Sr., who later was elected judge of a newly-created City Court of Litchfield, joined him in the practice. Paul McWilliams' two sons, J. Bert McWilliams and Paul McWilliams Jr., later joined their father in the law practice in their small office on Madison Street in Litchfield, currently the home of the Litchfield Chamber of Commerce.
The lineage of lawyers continues today with a grandson of Bert McWilliams, Attorney Andy Scharf, who currently practices law in the same office his grandfather had occupied until his death in 1998.
