The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office recently announced the first recipient of the SAF scholarship award. Their official press release is below.
“The Sheriff’s Office is proud to announce the first recipient of the Sheriff’s Advisory Foundation (SAF) scholarship award is an employee of the Sheriff’s Office, Joseph Van Meter.
The scholarship fund honors the memory of Retired Judge Richard C. Kirkpatrick who passed away in July 2017. The scholarship fund was created to give residents of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties scholarships to advance their careers in the criminal justice system.
Joseph Van Meter is pursuing a career in the criminal justice system. His scholarship of $1,496 will be utilized to obtain his license to practice law in California which requires a Moral Character Evaluation, Passage of the Multi-State Professional Responsibility Exam and Passage of the California Bar Exam.
In May 2017, Van Meter graduated from the University of California Los Angeles–School of Law with a JD law degree; he specialized in Law and Philosophy. In April 2014, he graduated from Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA with a B.A degree in Philosophy and a minor in Spanish.
His lifelong goal is to serve as a Deputy District Attorney, prosecuting crimes, and later as a judge, presiding over those prosecutions. It is for this reason that he spent a decade studying the law and working with our state’s various governmental agencies.
He has been a Judicial Law Clerk at the Los Angeles County Superior Court in Compton, CA, a Law Clerk at the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office in Stockton, CA and a Law Clerk/Paralegal at Chavez-Ochoa Offices in Valley Springs, CA. Currently, he is employed by the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office as a Legal Clerk assigned to the San Luis Obispo Warrant Control Bureau & the Sheriff Records’ Office.
Van Meter is married to wife Callie and they recently welcomed a son, Isaac into their family.
About the Fund: The SAF scholarship fund has been made available by a generous donation from Retired Judge Richard C. and Mary Kirkpatrick, who donated $100,000 to SAF. The purpose of the fund is to provide financial aid to help those who are pursuing a criminal justice career.”
