Posted on September 15, 2012

Ford Foundation Launches Fellowship Program in Public Interest Law

The Ford Foundation has announced the launch of a program designed to give some of the nation's highest achieving law students experience on the frontlines of public interest law.

Providing up to one hundred fellowships in its first year, the Ford Foundation Law School Fellowship Program will place highly motivated law students in ten-week commitments with Ford grantees around the world working to improve the lives of others through legal analysis, litigation, and public policy advocacy. The foundation has committed up to $1.75 million for the first year of fellowships, which are open to first- and second-year law students attending law school at an initial group of four partner institutions: Harvard, New York University, Stanford, and Yale. Fellows will receive $15,000 and begin their ten-week fellowships in the summer of 2013.

"This new fellowship proudly builds on the success of the foundation's fifty years of dedicated support for higher education," said Darren Walker, vice president of the foundation's Education, Creativity, and Free Expression program. "We believe the opportunities these grants will provide can connect the next generation of rights defenders to the visionary work on social justice being done globally."