The Silver and Silver Scholarship was established by Meyer Silver, CLA '72, founding partner at Silver and Silver, to honor a student who could use financial support because of a disability.

The Silver and Silver Scholarship is awarded to a College of Liberal Arts student with financial need who is registered with Disability Resources and Services and who will be enrolled the semester after the scholarship is granted. The qualified recipient must have 12 or more credit hours remaining and be in good academic standing. Nominations for the Silver and Silver Scholarship are collected in February and a recipient is selected by April. If you are interested in being considered for this scholarship, please visit the College of Liberal Arts website for more information about the nomination process.

Meyer "Mike" Silver, CLA '72

It was both chance and circumstance that led 1972 CLA graduate Meyer "Mike" Silver to enter the field of disability law. After graduating with honors from Temple University's Political Science program and Rutgers University's School of Law, Silver spent the next three and a half decades representing disabled individuals. Silver attributes his entrance into this field as pure chance having entered into this career when disability law was in its infancy. He'd had been asked to attend hearings for two gentlemen who were quite ill, and was quickly able to win benefits for both of them. His employer seemed impressed and told the other partners at the union labor law firm that the "new kid seems to know how to handle disability cases." Within a year he had several hundred of these cases, which he found to be personally and professionally rewarding. The other part of the answer though, is that he had accidentally fallen into a field for which he'd had been uniquely prepared.

Silver's mother provided the circumstances for which he became familiar with someone living with a disability. It was in her 40s when Silver's mother started experiencing something terrible that for a long time the doctors couldn't explain. Without warning, she would seem to slow her activities and almost come to stop, not seeming to know what was going on around her, and unable to move very much. Years later, when CT scans became available, it was discovered that she had suffered countless TIAs, or small strokes.  As her health continued to deteriorate, Mike’s mother taught him, up close and personal, what it meant to be disabled.

In his nearly 40 years of practicing law, and having helped thousands of individuals obtain the disability benefits they deserved, Silver found a way to turn the hardships his parents and family suffered into a career that could benefit so many.