Volunteering for the good of the local community was her passion, but four years ago she left for Oregon to pursue her life-long dream of becoming a lawyer.
This month, she returned to the island with a law degree and is now preparing to embark on a legal career. She wants to help those in need of legal assistance.
Lizama, a mother and wife, left her job as project manager at Coastal Resources Management four years ago to earn her juris doctor degree at Lewis and Clark Law School.
“I’ve always wanted to become a lawyer. I thought knowing the law would be very helpful,” she told Variety in an interview.
She said being a lawyer is not necessarily a glamorous career.
“I see it as something that can help the people,” she said. “It’s a lot of hard work actually.”
In law school, she received the pro-bono award and was named an outstanding clinical advocate.
“I volunteered at the family domestic violence center helping victims preparing restraining orders. Also I volunteered with junior high and high school functions at school, including helping students with mock trials. I also volunteered with many activities with Brandon’s school such as planning the 6th grade celebration,” she said.
Brandon is her 12-year-old son.
Lizama was also selected to be in the Animal Law Review and was the associate editor of their school publication.
She received the best oralist and best brief awards during her first year legal writing in the appellate moot court.
Two days before Lizama earned her industrial engineering degree from Marquette University in Wisconsin in 1996, she found out she was pregnant.
She said her family came first after her son was born but her desire to get a law degree never wavered.
She took night classes at Lewis and Clark so she could still become the traditional soccer mom and wife.
Despite her busy schedule, she survived law school.
“In college, you memorize everything. In law school, it’s about understanding and analyzing things. Read, read and read. Understand the facts of the legal cases. It’s really about analysis. In real life, nothing is perfect,” she said.
Time-management and discipline are also helpful habits.
“How do you take care of a family and do well at law school? Time management. You allot time for everything,” she said.
She interned at Schwabe, Williamson and Wyatt and worked on transactional cases for many top businesses.
She also worked as a certified law student, or CLS, with Multnomah Defenders Inc., a non-profit public defenders office.
“As a CLS, I completed arraignments, probation violations, diversion entry programs, and trials. I worked with many indigent clients. Not only did I make many friends (i.e. judges, court staff, sheriff deputy officers, etc.), there were several law firms including MDI asking me to submit my application and that they would hire me as soon as I passed the bar,” she said.
Lizama now joins the rank of the CNMI’s few indigenous-descent women lawyers.
Her mind is now focused on passing the Oregon and CNMI bar examinations.
She hopes to practice her new profession here.
In October last year, tragedy struck their family.
Her only brother was convicted of killing his girlfriend in Texas just after he was discharged from the U.S. military
He’s now serving his more than 50-year sentence and the case is on appeal.
Despite this family crisis, Lizama managed to finish her studies.
“It was really emotionally hard but God has really blessed me,” she said.
This 33-year-old future attorney-at-law hopes she could touch more lives when she enters the legal world.
