Fall 2026 Winner of the Legal Legacy Scholarship

Sohni Mallhi

Congratulations to Sohni Mallhi, our Fall 2026 Legal Legacy Scholarship winner! Sohni grew up in a home where her parents regularly opened their doors to people who needed a place to stay, and that spirit of service has followed her ever since. Now at Vermont Law and Graduate School, she hopes to turn that compassion into lasting structural change.

Read Their Essay Here:

As an outreach coordinator for a reentry program, I have the privilege of watching participants gain confidence and reclaim a sense of ownership over their lives in just two weeks. Listening to them speak candidly about their time served opened my eyes to the systemic shortcomings our curriculum was attempting to fill. As far as I am concerned, once a person completes their sentence, they have paid their debt to society as the system intended. Yet participants made clear that this belief is rarely reflected in how they are treated after release, reinforcing the necessity of transitional support programs.

The value of community service was instilled in me early. I grew up in a home with open doors. Our living room doubled as a temporary bedroom, complete with a sleeper sofa, extra blankets, and pillows reserved for my parents’ colleagues and acquaintances. We did not have much as a one-income household, but creating a no-judgment space for our guests offered them brief relief from an overwhelming sense of failure. Looking back, I realize our home functioned as a refuge for people who had fallen through the cracks of traditional systems.

I began noticing troubling disparities among those who sought help from my parents. White guests who owned cars often stayed for weeks or months, while Black guests with fewer resources rarely stayed more than a few days. Those with relative privilege seemed more comfortable accepting support, while those who needed it most were often hesitant to ask. This dynamic confused me until I experienced it myself. During a period of housing instability, I chose to sleep in my car rather than ask for help or apply for food assistance, both of which felt more daunting than enduring discomfort. Years later, when I admitted this to a coworker, he revealed that he had been sleeping in the adjacent parking garage while navigating his own crisis. Shame, not a lack of need, had kept us both silent.

The most difficult moments in my work come when participants cannot see the potential I see in them. I have watched individuals celebrate one year of sobriety, secure stable housing, and enroll in college. Yet others view applying for a job, school, or temporary housing as impossible because of their criminal records. While I strive to create environments rooted in dignity and respect, I understand that I am only one part of a much larger system.

What I needed during my own moment of silence was destigmatization. Similarly, when the criminal justice system imposes consequences that effectively never end, punishment is never fully completed, and individuals are denied the opportunity to return to society whole. For me, advocacy means accelerating the moment when people say yes to themselves. That process begins when someone else says yes first: yes, you have paid for your actions; yes, you belong; yes, I can help you move forward. Law school is where I seek the tools to turn that affirmation into lasting, structural change.