MALIBU, Calif. — Julianne Carter, a lifelong Lake County resident currently attending Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, has been named the school’s 2025 Terry M. Giles Honor Scholar.

The Giles Honor Scholar is a student in their third and final year of law school who is selected on the basis of scholastic achievement, co-curricular and extracurricular activities, personality, and character.

The scholarship is the namesake of its donor, Terry Giles is a Pepperdine Law alum who established one of the largest and most successful criminal law firms on the West Coast, and is also an award-winning author and law professor. Giles personally interviewed the applicants and selected Carter.

Carter, 22, will graduate from Pepperdine Law this month as the youngest student to ever receive a Juris Doctor law degree from the institution.

Prior to law school, she graduated from Pepperdine University with honors at age 19, receiving a bachelor's degree in philosophy.

While in law school, she was an advocate on the Honors Trial Team, where she competed in state and national trial competitions.

She was also a member of the Trial Team Executive Board and the Criminal Law Society; clerked at Legal Aid in downtown Los Angeles; worked at the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office; and spent two years appearing in criminal court in Lake County as a certified law student supervised by her mother, local attorney Angela Carter.

"I'm incredibly proud of Julianne," Angela Carter said. "It has been amazing to get to work with her. My clients and our local judges have been so kind to her. She is already a fantastic advocate with extreme intelligence and a kind heart. I am one lucky mom to have her as my daughter and one lucky lawyer to have her as my partner. She had her choice of jobs all over California, and she chose to come back and help her local community."

Following her graduation, Julianne Carter will join Angela Carter at her private criminal defense practice in Lakeport, which will be renamed Carter Law.

"I'm excited to return home to Lake County and practice law there," Julianne Carter said. "Our county is incredibly important to me, and I'm so grateful to have had everyone's support during my legal education."