AccessLex
Since launching our grantmaking activities in 2014, we have awarded over $26.4 million in support of our research priorities: access, affordability, and the value of legal education.
Awarded Grants
FILTER BY
FILTER BY
Grant Program
Grant Status
CLEAR ALL FILTERS
American University
Program:
Bar Success Research Grant Program
Date:
January 2021
Amount:
$117,960
Status:
Completed
The project will estimate the causal effect of participating in legal-career-related extracurricular activities while in law school on the chances of passing the Bar exam on the first attempt together with how racial, ethnic, or gender differences in extracurricular participation contribute to corresponding gaps in Bar success rates. View grant outcomes.
UC Hastings College of the Law
Program:
Bar Success Research Grant Program
Date:
December 2020
Amount:
$150,000
Status:
Completed
This grant will support the study of teaching reforms and academic and bar success interventions implemented at UC Hastings College of the Law.
View grant outcomes.
UC Berkeley School of Law
Program:
Unsolicited Grants Program
Date:
December 2020
Amount:
$125,000
Status:
Completed
This grant will support the development of the Pre-Law Online Curriculum, a web-based, mobile-friendly pre-law advising center that is free and available to all. This system will provide instructional modules, community discussions, and online resources to students preparing for law school.
View grant outcomes.
Washington University School of Law
Program:
Unsolicited Grants Program
Date:
August 2020
Amount:
$34,100
Status:
Completed
The project aims to evaluate factors that will enhance the value and relevance of legal education, especially for historically underrepresented groups. The first objective is to create a nationwide archival dataset on lawyer rosters, lawyer disciplinary actions, and state occupational licensing requirements for lawyers in the United States from 1900 to 2018. Second, the research will investigate the effects of a host of law school and licensing policies that are relevant to the value of legal education.
View grant outcomes.
University of St. Thomas School of Law
Program:
Unsolicited Grants Program
Date:
May 2020
Amount:
$69,300
Status:
Completed
Over the last few years, a growing number of law schools have implemented a required first-year course/program focused on professional development or professional identity formation. To date, there has been no assessment of which of the courses/programs are most successful in advancing students with respect to learning outcomes associated with professional development. This project would be designed to assess these courses/ programs and to identify the most successful pedagogies.
View grant outcomes.
University of San Diego
Program:
Unsolicited Grants Program
Date:
April 2020
Amount:
$45,000
Status:
Completed
The University of San Diego School of Law’s (USD) Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL), in partnership with the School of Business Department of Economics, plans to research inequality with respect to access to legal services. USD will investigate whether the lack of diversity in the attorney workforce directly impacts access to legal services by low-income, disadvantaged consumers, and whether the existing cut score of California’s Bar Exam is contributing to the justice gap in California.
View grant outcomes.
Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Program:
Bar Success Research Grant Program
Date:
February 2020
Amount:
$125,000
Status:
Completed
The project seeks to...
- Evaluate a replication on the State Bar of California’s July 2019 Bar exam of a Productive Mindset intervention that improved passage rates on its July 2018 exam.
- Examine predictors of bar passage in a data set compiled with over 7,000 takers across three years of California’s exams.
- Scale the Productive Mindset program to three new jurisdictions and examine predictors of passage in a multi-jurisdictional data set of over 10,000 takers of the July 2021 bar exam.
Hofstra University
Program:
Bar Success Research Grant Program
Date:
February 2020
Amount:
$155,000
Status:
Completed
The project will develop metacognitive teaching materials to be used within the law school curriculum and study the impact of this instructional intervention on bar passage. The project will use a mixed methods approach, using both qualitative and quantitative data, to examine whether students who are taught and prompted to engage in metacognitive skills develop stronger skills over time.
View grant outcomes.
American Bar Foundation
Program:
Unsolicited Grants Program
Date:
July 2019
Amount:
$87,140
Status:
Completed
The project will employ anthropological linguistic methods to examine how inequality is sustained in law schools in order to help them create more supportive environments for students and faculty of color. Faculty interviews, observations, and autobiographical textual analyses will be used to identify the verbal and non-verbal interactional habits that contribute to institutional practice that may sustain implicit biases.
View grant outcomes.