Daily News : Hero mom to be sworn in as lawyer

Angela Hines may not wear a cape, but she’s about as close to a real superhero as you’ll find.

The once-struggling mother of five and public-housing resident from Queens put herself through hell – and law school – while lavishing the kind of affection on her children that would make any loving parent proud.

After preparing her three older kids for school, Hines would take three city buses to the CUNY School of Law in Flushing with two toddlers in hand.

She read to them on the way – a trip that took two hours – before dropping them off at a day care center and attending classes for nearly eight hours.

Hines would return home at the Ocean Bay Houses in Far Rockaway after 7:30 p.m.

Then she prepared dinner.

“Plenty of days I cried, but I had to do it. I wanted a better life for my children,” said Hines, 38, who recently passed the bar exam and is set to be sworn in as a lawyer.

To her children, she is a true hero.

“She was able to hide all the bad stuff from us,” said her 14-year-old daughter, Ebony, who is on a scholarship at the prestigious Taft boarding school in Connecticut.

“A lot of my friends don’t talk to their parents like I do,” she said. “I never realized she was so special until now.”

Hines graduated from CUNY Law School in 2005 with a standing ovation from her admiring classmates, but she admits stumbling before reaching her goal.

“I was ashamed to say I didn’t have a high school diploma on job applications,” said Hines, who dropped out of school in 1987 and earned a GED in 1992.

“I needed to support my family. I needed to figure out what direction I was going,” she said.

It wasn’t until the Daily News spoke to her family that her children found out Hines was a high school dropout.

“She’s a real hard worker,” said her 17-year-old son, Idriss, a senior at the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan. “I see myself turning the TV on one day and saying, ‘That’s my mom.'”

Hines worked a string of odd jobs, including a stint as a bus driver at Kennedy Airport to support her kids in the early 1990s.

She said she almost didn’t make it back to school because of a family tragedy. Her mother, Verna Hines, died in her sleep at the age of 57 the night before Angela’s college-placement exam.

But Angela regained her focus and entered the New York City College of Technology in 1995, earning a degree in law and paralegal studies. Hines recalled working as a paralegal on a major personal-injury case and realizing she could become a lawyer.

“I did all of the work, and I didn’t get credit for it. So I said, ‘Ican do this,'” she reminisced of her Erin Brockovich moment.

Hines, who took out more than $100,000 in loans to fund her education, hopes to open a practice in Far Rockaway specializing in immigration law. She has no intention of moving to the suburbs.

“I don’t want to turn my back on the community,” she said. “If I could help just one person, then my work is done.”

Her husband of two years said it’s hard keeping up with a supermom.

“She’s really smart,” said Steven Hazel, 32, a barber who is the father of Hines’ two younger children and also brought a child from a previous relationship to the marriage. “She pushed the children to succeed and kept them out of the streets.”

In addition to her determination, Hines boasts some mean cooking chops.

“She makes the best lasagna,” said daughter Zhane, an 8-year-old second-grader in the gifted program at Public School 106 in Far Rockaway. “I think it’s great that she succeeded and took care of us every single day.”

Hines said her proudest accomplishment is raising independent children.

“All my children are self-sufficient,” Hines said.

Original Story: NY Daily News