By Shaka Mitchell
Let’s face it: the Institute for Justice is made up of free marketeers. We know how the marketplace works.
With the average private law school student graduating more than $76,000 in debt, and that tally ringing up to $48,000 for public law school graduates, we recognize that students must spend their precious 2L summer making money. But how is a small public interest law firm to compete to attract the best and brightest law students as summer clerks when these same folks can make thousands of dollars working at mega law firms?
Thanks to a generous and insightful donor, we will compete by offering the first-ever Torchbearer Scholarship, an award of $10,000 to a qualified second-year law student who wants to spend his or her summer litigating for liberty. Each summer, IJ brings together a dozen or so students from law schools across the nation to train them in the tools and tactics of public interest law. These clerks provide valuable service conducting legal research, drafting documents and so much more.
Applications for the Torchbearer Scholarship are now online. Additionally, even for students who do not receive the scholarship, IJ partners with other organizations, such as the Institute for Humane Studies, to underwrite the cost of spending a summer in the D.C. region. What’s more, law schools generally have grants available through a school’s Public Interest Law Group. Students are encouraged to apply early for all of these opportunities.
If you know students of who may be interested, please direct them to our website. The deadline to apply for IJ’s Torchbearer Scholarship is February 29, 2008.
Shaka Mitchell is IJ’s outreach coordinator.