Before becoming law partners at Sanders Roberts LLP, longtime friends Justin Sanders (JD 2000) and Reginald Roberts Jr. (JD 2000) found their profession in different ways.
Roberts, a first-generation college student, discovered he had a natural ease with words, which steered him to law. Sanders’ father was a Yale School of Law graduate and corporate lawyer with deep ties to the civil rights movement. Both Los Angeles natives, the future partners met as Morehouse College undergraduates before studying at the USC Gould School of Law.
Today, the USC alumni focus on business litigation, employee litigation and general liability defense, with clients including Ford Motor Company and Facebook. The firm has grown to 26 lawyers, and in 2016 and 2020, Daily Journal named it among California’s top 20 boutique firms. Despite their success, they haven’t forgotten the journey to get there.
“We had many mentors and men and women we looked up to who bent over backwards to say ‘yes.’ They did a lot for us to help put us in the position that we’re in now,” says Sanders, who was both a Southern California Super Lawyer and USC Black Law Students Association Alumnus of the Year in 2019. “It’s very important to us that we do the same for people that are coming up behind us.”
His law partner agrees. “USC Gould changed my life,” says Roberts, who was named one of the top 40 lawyers under age 40 by the National Bar Association in 2013. “When I’d walk down the hallways, the dean knew my name. It made me feel really invited, like I wasn’t the only person that was invested in my success. Because of that, we’re still giving back today.”
USC alums initiate scholarship fund for unrepresented law students
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