Info Session: Join the “Fund UC Public Interest Law” Campaign

Until this year, the UC Office of the President (UCOP) used to provide approximately $5 million a year to the UC law schools through the UC Public Service Service Law Fellowship. Those funds went directly to public interest summer grants and post-grad fellowships at each law schools. This year, UCOP ended the program and cut the funding completely, leaving the law schools to fill in the gaps with their own funds. As students at Berkeley Law have advocated for higher summer grant amounts, we have been met with the response that the school is unable to make any substantial increases in funding due to the loss of funding from UCOP. 1Ls at Berkeley Law who do public interest internships will receive $5,500, while the cost of living for the summer in Berkeley is over $11,000, according to the school’s own cost of living estimates. 

 

Public service is at the heart of the UC’s mission. It is time for the UC and it’s law schools to put their money where their mouth is and provide real financial support for students pursing public interest/public service work. Reinstating the Public Service Law fellowship and increasing it in accordance with cost of living would help make public interest work more accessible to more students from all backgrounds, thus beginning to address the acute shortage of public interest lawyers in California. 

 

Students at Berkeley Law have been organizing to ask the UC Regents and UC President Michael Drake to reinstate funding from the UC Public Service Service Law Fellowship. Please join us for an Information Session on how you can support the campaign & sign on to this letter to the UC Regents and UC President Michael Drake asking for the reinstatement of the UC Public Service Service Law Fellowship.

 

 

Questions? Please contact: adriana_hardwicke@berkeley.edu, arianewalter@berkeley.edu, or sacha_heymann@berkeley.edu.

 

Join us in Room 170 or on Zoom.