Law School Fund

The Law School Fund is an unrestricted fund that supports the Law School's annual operating budget, funding numerous activities and programs.

This unrestricted fund helps:

Support the Law School's operating budget

Lessen the cost of each student's tuition and expenses

Underwrite the costs of ongoing capital projects

Enable the Law School to address deferred building maintenance and keep facilities in good condition

Law School Fund Board
The Law School Fund Board is committed to building annual support for the Law School among our alumni and friends. The Board helps determine the Law School's fundraising strategies and messages, and also oversees fundraising-related initiatives like the Firm and Corporate Representatives programs and the John Henry Wigmore Club giving society.

Activities and programs also supported by the Law School Fund include:

General Scholarships
With the tuition rate at $40,680 for the 2006-07 academic year, the Law School is in urgent need of funding for scholarship support. Scholarships remain a crucial factor in students' ability to attend the School. Approximately 80 percent of currently enrolled students receive some financial assistance through grants and loans. Scholarship support continues to be a funding priority at Northwestern Law as we strive to attract a talented and diverse student body.

Pritzker Legal Research Center
The Law Library requires substantial supplemental support. In recent years, Law School Fund money has been directed to increase computerization of the library. While the Law Library's physical structure is magnificent and its holdings extensive, many of our peer law schools are farther along in their library computerization. This has become an integral part of modern legal research and a fundamental part of maintaining a first-rate library.

Bluhm Legal Clinic
The Bluhm Legal Clinic is a tremendous asset to the Law School. The trial advocacy simulation program and the juvenile justice center in the clinic have been especially high profile. The clinic currently has a strong live clinic operation that engages approximately 25 percent of the third-year class every year, a nationally ranked simulation program that teaches more than 100 students each year, and a growing externship program that takes in about 30 students each year. The clinic program allows students to work on real cases and gain practical experience in areas such as children's rights, domestic violence, and criminal defense. At the same time it provides an invaluable service to needy citizens in the community.

Legal clinics such as ours are tremendously expensive because their activities are people-intensive. The clinic relies entirely on annual support each year. Alumni gifts are essential to the continued success of the clinic.

Public Service Fellowships (formerly LRAP)
For many law graduates, the option of a government or public interest job after law school has not been possible because of education debts accumulated during law school; facing substantial repayment obligations, consideration of relatively low paying positions often seems impractical for such individuals.

Under the Public Service Fellowships (formerly LRAP), eligible graduates working as lawyers for legal aid offices, government agencies, academic institutions, consumer groups, and other qualifying employers receive grants for their legal education debt service. Those who qualify apply only a certain percentage of their earnings to their annual obligations for loan repayments; the Public Service Fellowships provides for the remainder of the obligations. If a graduate remains in a qualifying position for a specified amount of time, his or her program loan is forgiven in whole or in part, depending on the length of employment.

The Faculty
Competition for the best teachers and scholars among top law schools is intense. Other institutions, with broader alumni support, try to lure our faculty with the promise of higher salaries and more research support than we have sometimes been able to provide. Despite the competition, Northwestern Law boasts a superb faculty, but we must continue to provide a supportive environment for both teaching and scholarship.