Fall 2025 Workplace Rights Scholarship Winner

August Ryan

August’s passion for labor law is deeply personal — unions gave him the stability and opportunity to build his life, and now he is committed to giving back to those who rely on the same foundation. Congratulations, August — we admire your passion for making a difference!

Read his essay:

Before law school, I was a welder. Specifically, I was a rank-and-file union member in first the Boilermakers, and then the International Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen. Clearly, that did not end up being my best-and-final career choice in either instance. But, it gave me some strong drive and good reasons to pursue a career in law.

I am passionate about unions, not just because I think the law is interesting or because I want to help enforce civil rights for workers and everyone else, but because unions paid my bills for years. Unions gave me healthcare, steady work, and a more intangible (but just as important) sense of solidarity, security, and stability. So, whether union or non-union, I will always be on the side of workers.

In my dream role, I would work on the union side of contract negotiation or in a firm like yours that represents the rank-and-file. Without litigators, the laws languish. When workers’ rights are on the books, but not in the workplace, we get injuries, death, retaliation, and discrimination. For the laws to have teeth, we need lawyers to prod them along. I hope to be just such a lawyer, and I will be spending my time at the University of New Mexico developing the employment law knowledge and litigation skills the working world needs.

As you might imagine, I am not a stranger to hard work. I have been burned, cut, covered in fly-ash, and outside all night in the cold all in the name of a paycheck. So when it comes to representing workers who have been discriminated or retaliated against, I plan to bring the same attitude. Not just for the money, but to pay back the men and women who helped me get back home at the end of every day with ten fingers, ten toes, and the feeling of having done a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.