Stanford Law School
Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Crown Quadrangle
Stanford, CA 94305
www.law.stanford.edu/
Law School Pro Bono Programs
Contact Information
Lisa Douglass
Director, Stanford Law School Social Security Disability Project
John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law
ldouglass@law.stanford.edu
650-736-0773
Danielle R. Cover
Pro Bono Program Coordinator
John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law
dcover@law.stanford.edu
650-725-7909
Category Type
Formal Voluntary Pro Bono Program Characterized by a Referral System with Coordinator
Description of Program
Stanford Law School (SLS) is committed to excellence in legal education and views pro bono legal service as integral to that goal. SLS also seeks to advance the ethical standards of the legal profession in the United States, which state that lawyers should aspire to provide significant pro bono publico legal services. Through its voluntary Pro Bono Program, students are encouraged to contribute 50 hours or more of pro bono service during their time at SLS.
Like other programs under the auspices of the Levin Center, the Pro Bono Program is designed to inspire, teach, cultivate the interests and passions of, and provide experiential learning opportunities for law school students.
By doing pro bono work and, hopefully, clinical work in the 2L and 3L years, students learn important skills, such as legal research and writing, client interviewing and the crafting of legal arguments, among others, early in their legal careers. These skills greatly benefit students as they begin their careers in the public interest sector, government or law firms. Doing pro bono work also helps students to contextualize what they are learning in their classes and gives them "real world" experience. Students discover, first-hand, how the ability to navigate the complexities of the law can make a tremendous difference in the lives of the people that they help – whether it is preventing a person’s eviction from her home or filing a temporary restraining order against an abusive partner.
Currently, there are 19 pro bono projects covering a wide range of legal areas:
- Alternative Break options that include Student Hurricane Network, Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, Rural Education and Access to the Law, and a specialized trip to the Arizona-Mexico border
- Domestic Violence Pro Bono Project
- Equality Pro Bono Project (LBGT rights)
- Fresh Lifelines for Youth
- Guardianship Pro Bono Program
- Housing Pro Bono Program
- Immigration Pro Bono Program
- Language Bank
- International Human Rights
- Low Income Tax Preparation Aid
- Medical-Legal Collaborative Pro Bono Program
- Mediation
- Rural Legal Services
- Stanford Law School Social Security Disability Project
- StreetLaw
- Student Animal Legal Defense Fund
- Volunteer Attorney Program
Additionally, the Pro Bono Program is piloting two new immigrants’ rights programs with Bay Area agencies and a First Amendment project with the ACLU.
Location of Program
The Pro Bono Program is part of the John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law.
Staffing/Management/Oversight
The Pro Bono Program Coordinator administers the Pro Bono Program with support from the Associate Dean of Clinical Education and Public Service and the Executive Director of the Levin Center. There is also an in-house pro bono project, the Stanford Law School Social Security Disability Pro Bono Project, directed by Lisa Douglass. The Pro Bono Program is strongly supported by the Public Interest Committee, which is composed of faculty and two student representatives.
Funding
The Pro Bono Program is funded by the law school as part of the Levin Center's budget. SLS provides office space, computers, and student organization funding to the student groups and in-house projects that do pro bono work. SLS also provides some financial support for pro bono projects. To cite one example, the Levin Center, the Center on Ethics and the Stanford Public Interest Law Foundation helped to defray the expenses of students who traveled to the Gulf Coast over spring break to perform legal services. Faculty members who are engaged in pro bono work that overlaps with their faculty activities may use the resources of SLS to support their efforts.
Student Run Pro Bono Groups/Specialized Law Education Projects
Asian and Pacific Islander Law Students Association (APILSA): Members of APILSA established and staff the Asian Community Immigration Clinic, which provides free advice to Asians in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY): Law students act as mentors to at risk youth to prevent incarceration through legal education mentoring and peer leadership.
StreetLaw: Law students volunteer their time to teach youth about their legal rights in one-hour classes, held once a week for eight weeks in Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall or in one of five alternative high schools.
Faculty and Administrative Pro Bono
Faculty members take on a broad range of pro bono activities ranging from serving on boards of legal nonprofit organizations to drafting amicus briefs for U.S. Supreme Court cases, among others.
Awards/Recognition
Students who undertake 50 hours or more of pro bono service during their three years at the law school will be recognized for their contributions at a reception in their honor, the annual Public Interest Awards ceremony and graduation.
Community Service
Law School Public Interest Programs
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Contact Information
Anna Wang
Associate Director, John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law
annawang@law.stanford.edu
650-723-2519
Danielle R. Cover
Pro Bono Program Coordinator
John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law
dcover@law.stanford.edu
650-725-7909
Nancy Patton
Program Coordinator, John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law
NWPatton@law.stanford.edu
650-723-8974
Certificate/Curriculum Programs
While Stanford Law School does not offer a public interest certificate or a formal public interest curriculum track, students are actively encouraged and provided individualized advice and counsel about how to devise a law school plan that serves their public interest career goals.
Public Interest Centers
The John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law (“the Levin Center”) at Stanford Law School provides a valuable resource for students who are interested in or already committed to advancing the public good and achieving social justice through the law. In addition to offering an array of classes and clinics that provide students with a solid foundation of theoretical knowledge and practical skills, Stanford Law School supports students pursuing careers in the public interest, through its pro bono program, externships, mentoring, career services, speaker series, and opportunities for financial assistance and post-graduate fellowships.
The umbrella Levin Center office houses career services and public service programs, and coordinates the faculty-student Public Interest Committee at Stanford Law School. It also oversees a variety of public interest funding programs that tangibly support public interest and public sector students and alumni.
The groundwork provided though classes and clinics, and the opportunities created by the Levin Center enable our graduates to achieve the careers and advance the causes that first inspired them to earn a law degree.
Public Interest Clinics
Stanford Law School offers a rich array of in-house clinical courses, taking advantage of the opportunities such clinics afford to merge academic instruction and practical training. Ten in-house clinics are currently in operation with more slated to open in the future. Please click on the following links for more information on each clinic.
- Criminal Defense Clinic
- Stanford Community Law Clinic
- Criminal Prosecution Clinic
- Cyberlaw Clinic
- Environmental Law Clinic
- Immigrants' Rights Clinic
- International Community Law Clinic
- Organizations and Transactions Clinic
- Supreme Court Litigation Clinic
- Youth and Education Law Clinic
Externships/Internships
The externship program at Stanford Law School provides second- and third-year students with a focused semester-long educational experience by combining fieldwork in nonprofit and government organizations with structured coursework or independent study.
The Standard Externship Program (SEP) offers placements in Bay Area organizations, and the Special Circumstances Externship Program (SCEP) allows students to apply for placements in organizations outside the Bay Area. Many SLS students take this opportunity to work on the East Coast or abroad. In the past, SLS students have traveled to Tanzania, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Switzerland, Brazil, and Costa Rica to serve in externships.
Classes with a Public Service Component
Please see clinics.
Public Interest Journals
Stanford Law School offers several journals that cover substantive issues relating to public policy and public interest matters.
Environmental Law Journal (ELJ), which was founded in 1978, is a semiannual scholarly periodical dedicated to analyses of current environmental legal issues and policies.
Compiled and edited entirely by Stanford Law School students, ELJ publishes articles, and sometimes essays, on timely and important issues in natural resources law, environmental policy, law and economics, international environmental law, and other topics relating to law and the environment. For example, ELJ has covered such topics as hazardous waste, energy development, natural resources conservation and regulation, global warming, and environmental justice. In particular, ELJ seeks to educate regarding the complexities of the natural world as reflected in the law, and to impart an understanding of the environment within the framework of the legal system.
ELJ solicits submissions from academics, practitioners, and others; it also accepts student articles. ELJ publishes in January and June.
The Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (SJCRCL) is an interdisciplinary journal dedicated to civil rights and liberties issues both domestically and internationally. It seeks to explore the changing landscape of the civil rights and civil liberties dialogue, the real world implications of these changes on society, and the larger structural and systemic implications of these issues.
The Stanford Journal of International Law (SJIL) is a scholarly periodical devoted to analyses of current international legal issues. The student-run biannual prints articles by professors, practitioners, and students on a wide range of legal topics, including public international law, human rights, international trade, and comparative law. SJIL also publishes book reviews.
Within the law school community, SJIL exposes students to cutting-edge issues in international law and develops their research, writing, and editing skills. Outside the law school, it provides a resource for the exchange of scholarly ideas among practitioners, professors, judges, and holders of political office.
SJIL particularly encourages students to write and publish both full-length "notes" and shorter "recent developments." These shorter pieces are half the length of regular notes and discuss the legal significance of an important recent event in international law.
The staff of SJIL is composed of approximately fifty members and twenty editors who work closely with authors on the material for each issue. First-year students are encouraged to participate in the spring workshop and can become editors by the end of their second semester.
The Stanford Law & Policy Review (SLPR) publishes academic articles that analyze the intersection of local and national policy with our legal system. While maintaining the scholarly standards of other law journals, SLPR is written for and distributed to the nation's policymakers: lawyers, judges, government officials, scholars in law and the social sciences, and leaders in the business world. Each issue features a symposium on a current policy topic.
Public Interest Career Assistance
The Levin Center staff provides career counseling for summer and permanent employment, assistance with fellowship applications, faculty, alumni and student mentoring programs, networking events, as well as informational workshops and public interest panels.
Loan Repayment Assistance Programs (LRAP)
The Miles and Nancy Rubin Loan Forgiveness Program - the Law School's loan repayment assistance program (LRAP) - provides financial aid to graduates who pursue public interest or government service careers. In 1987, Stanford Law School was the first law school in the country to launch such a program.
Stanford's commitment to guaranteeing career choices for its graduates is demonstrated by LRAP's success. The program reflects one of the school's key values: that public service is a worthy pursuit and that lawyers have a professional obligation to participate in public service throughout the course of their careers.
The program:
- Ensures that salary will not drive alumni career decisions.
- Helps alumni with excellent skills, motivation, and credentials find public interest jobs in both the United States and abroad.
- Lends funds to eligible applicants to help them meet their monthly educational loan payments.
- Repays a portion of educational debt if the graduate remains in qualifying public interest employment for a specified period of time.
Loan repayment assistance can be just the encouragement a graduate needs to pursue the public interest career he or she has dreamed of. Graduates can participate in LRAP for up to ten years after they receive their JD. After they meet the income and employment qualifications for three years, participants become eligible for cancellation of 25 percent of their LRAP loans; after four years, 50 percent; and after five to ten years, 100 percent.
For 2007 program details, please visit http://www.law.stanford.edu/program/tuition/assistance/
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Post-Graduate Fellowships/Awards
Law School Funded:
Deborah L. Rhode, the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law, has endowed the Rhode Public Interest award, which is presented annually to a graduating student (or a team of graduating students) who has made outstanding contributions in work with underrepresented groups, in public interest causes outside the Law School, or in public service at the Law School. To be considered for the $3,000 award, the student must be nominated by faculty or other students.
Graduate Student Funded:
The Stanford Public Interest Law Foundation (SPILF) is a nonprofit, tax-exempt foundation established in 1978 by Stanford Law School students and alumni to provide funding for public interest law projects serving groups that have traditionally been denied adequate access to legal representation.
Other Funding Sources:
Stanford students and alumni traditionally have received several post-graduate fellowships each year from national fellowship programs including Skadden, Equal Justice Works, and Echoing Green fellowships as well as the U.S. Department of Justice, Attorney General's Honors Program appointments.
Term Time Fellowships/Scholarships
Law School Funded:
The Law School awards Public Interest Fellowships (tuition grants) to third-year law students who have a history of public service and are committed to beginning their careers as lawyers in the public service directly after graduation. These awards are an acknowledgement of the students' - as well as Stanford's - commitment to public service, and are provided with the goal of reducing the amount of financial debt our public interest fellows will face upon graduation.
Graduate Student Funded:
Other Funding Sources:
Summer Fellowships
Law School Funded:
Every summer, the Law School awards 70-75 summer public interest $5,000 fellowships. These fellowships are funded by Stanford Law School, Stanford Public Interest Law Foundation and federal work-study funds. Stanford Law School guarantees these fellowships to all students with financial need who plan to work in a nonprofit or government summer position.
The Lisa M. Schnitzer Memorial Scholarship was established by the family and friends of Ms. Schnitzer, a first-year Stanford Law School student who held a deep commitment to helping others, and who died in a car accident in 1987. Each spring, the $3,000 scholarship is awarded to a female first-year student who has demonstrated a strong commitment to helping the disadvantaged, who meets the Office of Financial Aid's criteria of financial need, and who will work for a nonprofit organization or government agency during the summer following her first year.
Graduate Student Funded:
Other Funding Sources:
The Levin Center also administers the nominations process for several summer scholarships providing over $40,000 in support. These are funded by external supporters and designated specifically for Stanford law students, including Sidley Austin Scholars, Justice John Paul Stevens Fellows, and Sonnenschein Scholars.
Extracurricular and Co-Curricular Programs
The Levin Center offers numerous extracurricular and co-curricular programs, including:
- Public Interest Faculty Speaker Series
- Public Interest Faculty and Student Mentoring Program
- Public Interest Alumni Mentor-in-Residence Program
- Public Interest Awareness Week, coinciding with the campus interview program, which provides a week of public interest programs including faculty speakers, alumni mentors, and pro bono training workshops
- Workshops on Fellowships and other post-graduate opportunities
- Panels on how to conduct a Public Interest summer job search
- Mock Interviews
- Public Interest "Day in the Life" forums
- Student Public Interest Fellows Advisory Committee Programs
- Annual Public Service Awards reception honoring two public interest advocates whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact
- Shaking the Foundations Conference, which is an annual conference that brings together law students, practitioners, and academics from around the country who share a commitment to use the law for positive, progressive social change. Through panels, workshops and speakers, the conference is designed to provide a forum for advocates and law students to discuss innovative strategies and solutions to the world's most pressing social justice issues. It is organized by students and supported in part by the Levin Center
Student Public Interest Groups
SLS public interest student groups have a variety of purposes, from focusing on specific practice areas like Environmental Law and International Law, to addressing the needs and interest of traditionally underrepresented groups, like Native American law students and queer students. Please visit http://www.law.stanford.edu/students/life/orgs.html for more information on these organizations.
- Asian and Pacific Islander Law Students Association (APILSA)
- Black Law Students Association (BLSA)
- Environmental Law Society
- National Lawyers Guild
- Native American Law Students Association (NALSA)
- OUTLAW
- Public Interest Law Student Association (PILSA)
- Shaking the Foundations
- Stanford International Law Society
- Stanford Latino Law Students Association (SLLSA)
- Stanford Public Interest Law Foundation (SPILF)
- Street Law
- Women of Stanford Law
