Since launching our grantmaking activities in 2014, we have awarded over $21 million in support of our research priorities: access, affordability, and the value of legal education.
Awarded Grants
Grant Program
Grant Status
The State Bar of California
Grant Title: Investigating the Benefits of Live Remote Proctor of Bar Exam
The State Bar seeks to evaluate the benefits of live remote proctoring (LRP) for the First-Year Law Students’ Examination (FYLSX). Previous remote FYLSX’s have been proctored relying on software recording and AI-based monitoring. This project will evaluate if LRP, 1) reduces false positive violations; 2) lessens login and other technology issues examinees encounter; 3) improves overall test experience for examinees.
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Behavioral Insights Institute
Demographic matching between law students from underrepresented groups and law school faculty increases these students’ access to research opportunities and quality employment and impacts their sense of belonging. The sense of belonging influences students’ academic performance, course selections, J.D. degree completion, and bar exam success.
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University of North Texas Dallas College of Law
T.R.A.I.L is a 3-credit course utilizing culturally relevant online modules, "wise feedback," law student mentors and class instruction to teach law school skills, strengthen academic self-concept, and address stereotype threat.
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UC Berkeley School of Law
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.
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The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois on behalf of The John Marshall Law School
This project will study the efficacy of an intervention to enhance law student writing skills and create a scalable, replicable model to improve student writing for use in other law schools.
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University of St. Thomas School of Law
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.
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University of San Diego
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.
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Dillard University
The LEAD Program has identified key components to student success based upon the experiences of the 2018 and 2019 LEAD cohorts. By 2022, LEAD will have data on almost 100 predominately African American students to analyze and share with the pipeline community and the legal academy. By engaging in robust data collection, analysis, and assessment, LEAD can help to develop scalable, data driven best practices for pipeline programs around the United States.
Wayne State University
The Damon J. Keith Pre-Law Summer Institute program targets undergraduate students who are graduates of the Detroit Public School Community District (DPSCD) and interested in attending law school. It will provide participants with LSAT preparation, academic skills-building, law school application and admissions support, and mentors.