Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Suc­cess is no stranger to Sparkle Sook­nanan. This young at­tor­ney was able to main­tain a Grade Point Av­er­age (GPA) of 4.0 through­out her aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits which start­ed in 2000 at St Fran­cis Col­lege in Brook­lyn, New York.

Not on­ly did she climb her way up the lad­der of aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess but she al­so worked at the same time.Sook­nanan, 29, worked at HIP Health New York from 2004 to 2009 and start­ed law school in 2006 as an evening stu­dent.

In a few months she will start her clerk­ship with As­so­ciate Jus­tice of the Supreme Court of the Unit­ed States So­nia So­tomay­or, an op­por­tu­ni­ty that has left Sook­nanan feel­ing ho­n­oured and hum­bled.

The Supreme Court of the Unit­ed States is the high­est court in that coun­try and Sook­nanan's jour­ney there is one that rep­re­sents the cul­mi­na­tion of many dreams.So­tomay­or was nom­i­nat­ed by US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma on May 26, 2009. She be­came the first Lati­na Supreme Court Jus­tice in US his­to­ry.

Sook­nanan said, "I knew af­ter I start­ed law school that I had found my place and want­ed to spend my ca­reer in the le­gal pro­fes­sion."Af­ter at­tend­ing Na­pari­ma Girls' High School from 1995-2000, Sook­nanan who was then 16 and liv­ing in St Charles Vil­lage on the out­skirts of San Fer­nan­do, left for the US to at­tend col­lege.

She com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the Sun­day Guardian via e-mail last week about her re­cent achieve­ment.

Thrilled to clerk for So­tomay­or

Sook­nanan is the first grad­u­ate of Brook­lyn Law School to clerk for the US Supreme Court.On De­cem­ber 20 last year, the school pub­lished an ar­ti­cle on its Web site high­light­ing Sook­nanan's ac­com­plish­ment.

School pres­i­dent Joan G Wexler wrote: "Sparkle is the first Brook­lyn Law School grad­u­ate to achieve this great ho­n­our."We are all enor­mous­ly proud of her."Sook­nanan praised So­tomay­or say­ing she was not on­ly a bril­liant ju­rist and per­son but an ex­cep­tion­al role mod­el.

Wikipedia states So­tomay­or en­tered Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty on a full schol­ar­ship and that there were few women stu­dents and few­er Lati­nos.The Web site said, "She knew on­ly of the Bronx and Puer­to Ri­co and she lat­er de­scribed her ini­tial Prince­ton ex­pe­ri­ence like "a vis­i­tor land­ing in an alien coun­try." So­tomay­or was too in­tim­i­dat­ed to ask ques­tions for her first year there, her writ­ing and vo­cab­u­lary skills were weak, and she lacked knowl­edge in the clas­sics.

How­ev­er, she put in long hours in the li­brary and over sum­mers, worked with a pro­fes­sor out­side class, and gained skills, knowl­edge and con­fi­dence.Sook­nanan said she was thrilled and ex­cit­ed to be­gin her clerk­ship with So­tomay­or.

She said, "I am deeply ho­n­oured and hum­bled by the tremen­dous op­por­tu­ni­ty."It rep­re­sents the cul­mi­na­tion of so many dreams."

Par­ents in­stilled val­ues at young age

She said the val­ues her par­ents–Deo and Sha­fi­na–in­stilled in her at a very young age mo­ti­vat­ed her to make the most of the op­por­tu­ni­ties she re­ceived.She's al­ways striv­ing to do her best and praised all those who helped her along the way. "I will al­ways be in­debt­ed to my par­ents for their love, en­cour­age­ment and sup­port...all my fam­i­ly mem­bers, my pro­fes­sors, my judges and my won­der­ful friends who have pro­vid­ed guid­ance and sup­port through­out my aca­d­e­m­ic and pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer."

She said they were all in­stru­men­tal in help­ing her to re­alise her dreams and that their love and en­cour­age­ment con­tin­ues to be in­valu­able."Work­ing while at­tend­ing law school was chal­leng­ing but al­so ex­treme­ly re­ward­ing."Thus far, it has been amaz­ing," she said.Con­tact­ed on Wednes­day, Sook­nanan's fa­ther, Deo, who lives in Trinidad said words could not de­scribe his daugh­ter's suc­cess.

Mar­vel­lous. Proud. Hap­py. Won­der­ful...were just a few.What can a fa­ther say to ex­press his feel­ings about his child's ac­com­plish­ment on the in­ter­na­tion­al scene?Deo said when she was born her tiny fea­tures sparkled."She was sparkling when she was born," he said.

Apart from that, he want­ed to name her Sparkle.Al­ways pro­vid­ing en­cour­age­ment to his three chil­dren was im­por­tant, he said.She had a goal and we nev­er tried to push her.

"We al­ways told her to pur­sue what she loved and that's what she did, Deo said.His son Chris­t­ian is a he­li­copter pi­lot in the T&T Air Guard and younger daugh­ter Jade is in the per­form­ing arts.

Of Sook­nanan's aca­d­e­m­ic and pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess, Deo said, "I can't de­scribe what I feel. It is won­der­ful and it's a bless­ing to me."All par­ents love to see their chil­dren ex­cel and I am ex­treme­ly proud of her."Sook­nanan vis­its Trinidad as of­ten as she could.

About Sook­nanan

�2 At­tend­ed Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian School

�2 Na­pari­ma Girls' High School

�2 BSc in man­age­ment, spe­cial­is­ing in in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness, sum­ma cum laude–St Fran­cis Col­lege, Brook­lyn

�2 MBA in mar­ket­ing (with dis­tinc­tion)–Hof­s­tra Uni­ver­si­ty, Hemp­stead

�2 Ju­ris Doc­tor, sum­ma cum laude–Brook­lyn Law School

�2 Law clerk to the Judge Er­ic N Vi­tal­iano of the US Dis­tric Court for the East­ern Dis­trict of NY

�2 Law clerk to Judge Gui­do Cal­abre­si of the US Court of Ap­peals for the Sec­ond Cir­cuit

�2 Cur­rent­ly an at­tor­ney on the Ap­pel­late Staff of the Civ­il Di­vi­sion of the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice

�2 Main­tained a 4.0 GPA

�2 Lives in Wash­ing­ton, DC

Awards:

�2 Al­pha Kap­pa Psi Schol­ar­ship Award–high­est cu­mu­la­tive av­er­age in busi­ness di­vi­sion;

�2 Wall Street Jour­nal Stu­dent Achieve­ment Award–top grad­u­at­ing se­nior;

�2 Broth­er Ed­mund Holmes OSF '28 En­dowed Schol­ar­ship–out­stand­ing aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance;

�2 Fac­ul­ty Prize–high­est ho­n­our at Brook­lyn Law School;

�2 Samuel Hoff­man Memo­r­i­al Prize–ex­cel­lence in the study of cor­po­rate law;

�2 Amer­i­can Bank­rupt­cy Law Jour­nal Stu­dent Prize–ex­cel­lence in the study of bank­rupt­cy law, among oth­ers.