Fellowships

The Justice John Paul Stevens Public Interest Fellowship Program provides grants to enable law students at participating law schools to work in unpaid public interest summer law positions.

The Foundation partners with 38 law schools to operate and fund the program.* Participating law schools locally administer the selection process.

The Fellowships at Campbell University Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law are generously supported by Deanne Maynard and Charlie Rawls. The Fellowships at Georgetown University Law Center are generously sponsored by the law firm Arnold & Porter.  The Fellowships at Howard University School of Law are generously supported by the Morrison & Foerster Foundation.

To be eligible for the Fellowship, applicants must be currently enrolled students at a participating law school.  Each applicant must arrange a full-time unpaid summer public interest law internship with a governmental agency or a nonprofit organization.  In general, law schools require a written application and select Stevens Fellows based on a strong interest in public interest and social justice law, academic achievement, and financial need.  The application deadline and selection process take place in the spring at most participating law schools.

As of December 2022, the Stevens Foundation is not inviting additional law schools to participate in the Stevens Fellowship program.  

* At Northwestern University School of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, and Yale Law School, gifts primarily from former law clerks of Justice Stevens to those law schools fund the Stevens Fellowships.  At all other participating law schools, the Foundation and the law schools jointly fund the Stevens Fellowships.